Poem fractal

The Lamb

by William Blake

28 November 1757 to 12 August 1827 (~70)

Browse poets 678
In their words

“What, it will be Question'd, When the Sun rises, do you not see a round disk of fire somewhat like a Guinea? O no, no, I see an Innumerable company of the Heavenly host crying Holy Holy Holy is the Lord God Almighty.”

The guinea-sun of common sense is refused for a visionary dawn · A Vision of the Last Judgment

More remarks (86)

Drawing the boundary…

Read the poem Another poem

A fractal is a shape that keeps its pattern when you look closer. Coastlines, trees, shells, and weather do this. A poem can be drawn the same way.

The poem’s constant is read from the build of its lines: their length, the size of the stanzas, and the share of vowels. Poems whose constants lie closer together are built more alike. The same poem always draws the same picture. Change the length of a line, the stanza, or the vowel share, and both the number and the picture move.

Primunia is the name for the source of that order: the pattern under the pattern, already there in a tree, a shell, and a verse.

Poems nearby in the constant

A smaller distance means the lines are built more alike.

  1. Thomas Hood · −0.1752 − 0.5801i · 0.009 away · Compare side by side
  2. Alexander Pope · −0.1581 − 0.5639i · 0.021 away · Compare side by side
  3. Emily Dickinson · −0.2012 − 0.5674i · 0.024 away · Compare side by side
  4. William Thom · −0.1501 − 0.5868i · 0.031 away · Compare side by side
  5. Francis Ledwidge · −0.1725 − 0.5380i · 0.034 away · Compare side by side
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