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Fire and Ice
Fire and Ice
Fire and Ice
by Robert Frost
About the author
Robert Lee Frost (March 26, 1874 – January 29, 1963) was an
American poet. His work was initially published in England before it
was published in America. Known for his realistic depictions of rural
life and his command of American colloquial speech. Frost
frequently wrote about settings from rural life in New England in the
early twentieth century, using them to examine complex social and
philosophical themes.
Frost was honoured frequently during his lifetime and is the only
poet to receive four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry. He became one of
America's rare "public literary figures, almost an artistic institution."
He was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in 1960 for his poetic
works. On July 22, 1961, Frost was named poet laureate of Vermont.
When and why was Fire and Ice
writtten?
According to one of Frost's biographers, "Fire and Ice" was
inspired by a passage in Canto 32 of Dante's Inferno, in which
the worst offenders of hell, the traitors, are submerged in "a
lake bound with ice. It is also said that the poem was inspired
by the prominent astronomer Harlow Shapley. Once when
Frost asked Shapley how the world is supposed to end, he
replied that either the sun will explode and incinerate the
Earth, or the Earth will somehow escape this fate only to end
up slowly freezing in deep space. Surprisingly, the very next
year Frost published his poem, ‘Fire and Ice’.
The poem
On the other hand , the speaker equates ice with the emotions
like hatred, coldness, selfishness and rigidity. He believes that
if fire somehow wasn’t enough to destroy the world entirely,
then ice could manage the feat as well. He thinks that ice is
equally dangerous and destructive. It is something that would
chill the world, slow it down, and isolate each individual
enough that the human race simply couldn’t survive it. The
potential of ice will be sufficient to destruct the world. Even
though the speaker tends to believe in the destructive power of
desire, he sees no reason to believe that hate couldn’t end the
world just as easily.
Word meaning:
Perish: come to an end, die.
Tasted: experience
Suffice: be sufficient.
Great: here powerful
Poetic Devices/ figure of speech:
1 Anaphora: “ some say” repeated in the 1st and the 2nd lines.
2. Metaphor and symbolism: ‘Fire’ and ‘Ice’ compared to strong passion and
hatred respectively.
3. Imagery: Fire and Ice have deeper meaning. Fire means feeling of burning
desire and ice means coldness of hatred.
4. Alliteration: ‘some say’, ‘favour fire’
5. enjambment: ‘I think....destruction ice’
6. antithesis: two contradictory ideas expressed, “Fire and Ice”.
Rhyme scheme
aba,abc,bcb
Questions for practice
(to be written in note book)
Q1. Read the extract and answer the questions given below:
“Some say the world will end ....those who favour fire”
a) What do “fire” and “Ice” stand for?
b) Who is ‘I’ in the given stanza?
c) Why does he believe that the earth will end in fire?
d) What are the literary devices used in the stanza?
Q2. Read the extract and answer the questions given below:
“But if it had to perish twice......and would suffice.”
a)What does ‘it’ refer to?
b)What will happen if the earth perishes twice?
c) What does the word ‘great’ mean in the given context?
d) What would suffice and why?
Questions for practice
(to be written in note book)