Robert Frost’s “Fire and Ice” 

Robert Frost was born on March 26, 1874, in San Francisco, California. He became one of the most celebrated figures in American literature, earning four Pulitzer Prizes. He is one of America’s most iconic poets, known for his exploration of human emotions, nature, and the complexities of life. His poetry often delves into themes of isolation, choices, and the human condition, presented through deceptively simple language. While his settings often include rural landscapes, they serve more as backdrops for profound reflections on universal human experiences. Frost’s ability to blend deep philosophical insights with accessible verse has made him a lasting figure in American literature.

About the Poem.

This short poem outlines the familiar question about the fate of the world, wondering if it is more likely to be destroyed by fire or ice. People are on both sides of the debate, and Frost introduces the narrator to provide his personal take on the question of the end of the world. The narrator first concludes that the world must end in fire after considering his personal experience with desire and passion, the emotions of fire. Yet, after considering his experience with “ice,” or hatred, the narrator acknowledges that ice would be equally destructive.

Fire and Ice Text

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,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice

Is also great And would suffice.

Analysis of Fire and Ice

Fire and Ice is one of Robert Frost’s shortest poems but gives the reader much to ponder. Casual in tone, with clichés, it introduces to the reader the profound idea that the world could end in one of two ways, with fire or ice, through desire or hate.

If you listen to the video, read by Frost, it is possible to detect a hint of understatement in his voice. Perhaps a subject of such seriousness needs to be treated with a certain insouciance?

It has that traditional iambic beat running through the mostly tetrameter lines – save for three dimeter – which Frost employed a lot and it’s this rhythm that could be said to undermine the essential seriousness of the subject – the end of the world.

Note that the longer lines can be read a little quicker than the short ones, which means a different tempo for the reader at lines 2, 8, and 9.

From those two alliterative opening lines, the reader is drawn into the rhetorical argument – fire or ice for the end of the world? These lines are based on mere hearsay…Some say…who says?…experts…the guy on the street, the woman in the bar?

The third line, along with the fourth and sixth reveal the first person speaker, keen to let the reader in on his idea of things. His worldview. This is a poem of opinion, yes, but opinion is brought about by personal experience.

Everyone knows the world will end at some time but no one knows how. This poem posits fire or ice, then fire and ice, as the likely causes of the world’s demise. To bring the idea into the human domain, the speaker links the elements to human emotion – fire is desire, ice is hate – and the speaker has experienced them both.

Delving deeper, if Frost took inspiration from Dante’s Inferno, then it’s necessary to relate these nine lines of the poem to the nine circles of hell mentioned in Dante’s book and to also link the Greek philosopher Aristotle’s ethical ideas about human nature, which Dante’s book reflects.

Aristotle basically said that to live a positive life the passions had to be controlled by reason and that humans were the only ones capable of rational thought. In contrast to the animals.

So in the poem fire is desire which is passion, ice is hate which is reason. Those who strayed away from the positive life through reason were judged the worst offenders, ending up in a lake of ice.

Either way, the end of the world is brought about by the emotional energy of humans.

Frost’s poem neatly expresses this ethical scenario in a nutshell. It’s a sort of chili pepper in a fridge.

More Analysis of Fire and Ice

Fire and Ice is a nine-line single-stanza rhyming poem with a strong metrical base of iambic tetrameter and dimeter.

Rhyme

The rhyme scheme is aba ABC bcb with ice repeated twice and also contained within twice/suffice.
This clever twist on the terza rima rhyme means that the initial opening fire gradually fades as the poem progresses, with ice taking over.

Meter (Metre in British English)

Overall the poem is a mix of iambic tetrameter and iambic dimeter, the long lines having eight syllables and
four stresses, the shorter four syllables and two stresses. This gives the poem a rising feel as each word at the line end is stressed. That familiar daDUM daDUM steady beat is maintained, one of Frost’s most popular.

Let’s look closely:

Some say / the world / will end / in fire, (spondee+3 iambs)
Some say / in ice. (spondee+iamb)
From what / I’ve ta / sted of / desire (4 iambs)
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is al / so great (2 iambs)
And would suffice.

So note the spondees that open the first two lines giving a spurt of energy with a double stress to the alliteration. Line seven scans a little differently as the reader has to naturally pause at the end of destruction before the word ice continues the meaning into the final two lines via enjambment.