In searching for some possible background detail on Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem Sonnet Xviii. To the Autumnal Moon [which I posted today on the Coleridge Memorial Trust Facebook page], I came across one of those surprising and magical finds – a computer analysis of the poem, and what an absurd hoot it is:

It is as secure as it can be within the context of its nonsense on the mathematical basis of the poem – and I have no idea if the program used this to interpret it as a sonnet or the word ‘sonnet’ in its title – but the reference to its use of exclamation marks, and subsequent extrapolation of excitement, is momentous!

I thought I’d explore what the computer program does with a less traditional poetic form, so the following is its analysis of Gertrude Stein’s A Blue Coat. The extrapolation here about its ‘closest stanza type’ is so reassuring in how we might not need to fear all artificial intelligence:

Here’s the poem:

A blue coat is guided guided away, guided and guided away, that is the particular color that is used for that length and not any width not even more than a shadow.

[NB: if interested/engaged, please read the following post]