Work Classification Layer
Compare Works
Pick two or more works to set their attribute fingerprints, dimension-by-dimension passages, and shared school embodiments side by side. Especially useful for author-stage comparisons (Wittgenstein early vs late) and for setting a single tradition's foundational texts against each other.
The First Cities
Lorde's 1968 debut poetry collection — 'The First Cities'
Attribute Fingerprint
Rows where works disagree are highlighted in gold. The full ontology grid is shown.
| Attribute | The First Cities (Early) |
|---|---|
| Time · Extent | Infinite |
| Time · Ontological Status | Relational |
| Time · Grain | Continuous |
| Time · Freedom | Non-Deterministic |
| Time · Traversability | Linear |
| Time · Dimensionality | One |
| Time · Direction | Uni-directional |
| Space · Extent | Infinite |
| Space · Ontological Status | Relational |
| Space · Curvature | Implicit |
| Space · Dimensionality | Three |
| Space · Locality | Implicit |
| Matter · Extent | Finite |
| Matter · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Matter · Conservation | Conserved |
| Matter · Dimensionality | Three |
| Matter · Locality | Implicit |
| Observer · Time Instance | Single |
| Observer · Space Instance | Single |
| Observer · Knowledge Extent | Mediated |
| Observer · Knowledge Retainment | Partial |
| Observer · Physicality | Embodied |
| Observer · Agency | Active |
| Observer · Number | Plural |
| Observer · Metaphysical Agency | Impersonal |
| Observer · Moral Authority | Reason |
| Observer · Theological Method | — |
| Energy · Extent | Finite |
| Energy · Ontological Status | Substantival |
| Energy · Conservation | Variable |
| Energy · Dispersibility | Reversible |
| Information · Ontological Status | Relational |
| Information · Cosmic Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Personal Conservation | Conserved |
| Information · Granularity | Implicit |
Dimension-by-Dimension Evidence
What each work's passages reveal about its stance on each of the six dimensions.
Time
The First Cities
1968 publication; poems composed 1959-1968. Lorde was 34, married to Edwin Rollins (whom she would divorce in 1970), with two young children, and working as a librarian.
Space
The First Cities
New York / Harlem / Greenwich Village. Lorde's geographical-social space was the late-1960s New York poetic community.
Matter
The First Cities
Small-press poetry collection (24 poems, ~60 pages). Form is short-lyric: most poems under one page, with imagistic-compression as the dominant aesthetic.
Observer
The First Cities
Early Lorde. The observer is the working librarian and emerging poet, before the mid-1970s emergence as major public-philosophical voice.
Energy
The First Cities
Founding-poetic energies. The collection records Lorde finding her early poetic voice.
Information
The First Cities
Small first collection (~60 pages, 24 poems).
Internal Tensions
Where each work's argument pulls against itself.
The founding collection of one of the major late-twentieth-century American poetic voices. Continuously read in Lorde-scholarship for the formative-period material; the early poems show the development of themes that would become central in the mid-1970s breakthrough collections.