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Read the full text of Frost's famous poem about the contrast between fire and ice as symbols of desire and hate. Learn about the poem's themes, context, and analysis.
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- Robert Frost
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Read the full text of Frost's famous poem that explores the contrast between fire and ice as symbols of desire and hate. Learn more about the poet, his life, and his other works on the Academy of American Poets website.
- Lines 1-2
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- Lines 5-9
These first few lines describe the disagreement in general society on the topic of how the world ends. In a modern sense, “fire” and “ice” could well be stand-ins for “nuclear disaster” and “climate change.” Frost’s use of “fire” and “ice,” however, is largely a metaphoric decision that opens the poem up to different kinds of interpretation. Ice an...
Here the speaker provides their own opinion — they equate fire with desire, which is to suggest that it is equal with passions, with greed, with rage. Fire is being used as a metaphor for strong, consuming emotions such as desire. It is a fitting analogy— in a candle or a fireplace, fire shows a person the way. It is warmth and light. In the same w...
As a close opposite to the burning desires the speaker sees as being so dangerous, the ice is also a concern in their mind. They believe the world will burn, in one form or the other, and that would end it — but if it didn’t end, and the fire wasn’t enough, the remainder of the poem says, then they believe the ice could manage the feat as well. As ...
A popular poem by American poet Robert Frost that compares the world's end to the choice between fire and ice. The speaker prefers fire, which represents desire and hate, and ice, which represents indifference and destruction. The poem is inspired by Dante's Inferno and an astronomer's conversation.
A reading of "Fire and Ice". " Fire and Ice " is a short poem by Robert Frost that discusses the end of the world, likening the elemental force of fire with the emotion of desire, and ice with hate. It was first published in December 1920 in Harper's Magazine [1] and was later published in Frost's 1923 Pulitzer Prize -winning book New Hampshire.
- 1920
- Harper's Magazine
- Desire, hate
People also ask
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Why does Frost use fire and ice?
Dec 1, 2019 · The poem explores the themes of fire and ice as allegories of human emotions and behaviour, and how they can destroy the world. It was written in 1920, in the context of the First World War and the rise of fascism. It is a symbol of the poet's view that fire is more likely to end the world than ice, and that fire is more powerful than ice.
Learn how Frost uses form, language, and anticlimax to explore the question of whether the world will end in fire or in ice. See the poem's text, summary, and interpretation in this study guide.
