Fire and Ice by Robert Frost




“Fire and Ice” is one of Robert Frost's most popular poems, published in 1920 in Harper's Magazine and in 1923 and in his Pulitzer Prize–winning book New Hampshire. It discusses the end of the world, likening the elemental force of fire with the emotion of desire, and ice with hate. "Fire and Ice" was inspired from Dante's Inferno, in which the worst offenders of hell, the traitors, are submerged, while in a fiery hell, up to their necks in ice.
It is also said that the astronomer Harlow Shapley claims to have inspired "Fire and Ice". Shapley describes that he had met with Robert Frost. Shapley was the astronomer, Frost asks him how the world will end. Shapleyranswered that either the sun will explode and burn the Earth, or the Earth will somehow escape this fate only to end up slowly freezing. Shapley was surprised at seeing "Fire and Ice" in print a year later.
Text of the Poem
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice, 5
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
Summary
The speaker considers the age-old question of whether the world will end in fire or in ice. This is similar to another age-old question: whether it would be preferable to freeze to death or burn to death.
The speaker brings us into the middle of an argument between people who think the world will come to a fiery end and people who think the world will freeze.
The speaker's experience with romantic desire has taught him that passionate or "hot" emotions like love and lust would probably have the power to turn the earth into a big fireball. But he has also experienced the other extreme, and he knows that colder emotions like hate have great destructive power. Love gets all the publicity, but hate is the silent killer. It may not have the same status as the fireball ending, but it'll do the trick.


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