Fire and Ice

Summary

Fire and Ice is a nine-line lyric that Robert Frost first printed in Harper's Magazine in December 1920 and collected three years later among the short Grace Notes of New Hampshire (1923), the book that won him his first Pulitzer Prize. It is one of his most anthologized poems and one of the briefest. The poem opens by reporting a disagreement about the end of the world. Some people say it will end in fire, and some say in ice. The speaker does not settle the question with science or prophecy. He settles it from experience: from what he has tasted of desire, he holds with those who favor fire. Then he widens the claim. If the world had to perish twice, he says, he knows enough of hate to judge that ice would also be great for destruction, and would suffice. The poem quietly pairs each element with a passion. Fire is desire, the hot and grasping appetites that consume. Ice is hate, the cold, hard, withholding passions that freeze. Both are already at work in the human heart, and the speaker admits he has met them there himself. A question about cosmic catastrophe becomes a question about the soul, and the threat comes from inside rather than from the stars. Much of the poem's force lies in its tone. The vocabulary is plain, the lines grow shorter as the poem goes cold, and the last words, would suffice, are almost a shrug. That understatement makes the conclusion more unsettling than a shout would be. Frost uses only three rhyme sounds in nine lines, so the words fire, ice, and hate keep echoing. For a classical Christian classroom, the poem opens a conversation about the passions and the deadly sins, about Dante's frozen lowest circle of Hell, and about the warning in the Gospels that the love of many shall wax cold. It also invites honest notice of what the poem leaves out: it names the destruction and offers no rescue.

Plot or Argument

• Two predictions (lines 1-2)

  The poem begins by setting out two common opinions about the end of the world: some say it will come by fire, others by ice.

• The vote for fire (lines 3-4)

  Drawing on what he has tasted of desire, the speaker sides with those who favor fire, linking the world's end to human appetite.

• The case for ice (lines 5-9)

  If the world had to perish twice, his knowledge of hate tells him that ice would also be great for destruction and would suffice; the last short lines end in cold understatement.

Characters

• The speaker, Speaker

  A plain-spoken voice who joins a debate about the end of the world and judges it from his own experience of desire and hate.

Lessons

• The end of the world begins in the heart

  Frost turns a question about how the world will end into a question about the passions. Desire is fire and hate is ice, and the speaker knows both from the inside. Students can see that great evils in history usually grow from ordinary sins left unchecked.

  • What evidence does the speaker use to form his opinion, and why is that surprising?
  • How can desire, which is not always bad, become destructive like fire?
  • Name a story you have read in which desire or hatred ruined a person or a community.

• Understatement can be louder than a shout

  The poem ends with the mild words is also great and would suffice. Saying less than the situation deserves forces the reader to supply the horror. Students should practice hearing tone as well as reading words.

  • How would the poem change if it ended with a dramatic line about flames or death?
  • Why might a calm voice be more frightening than an excited one?
  • Where else have you heard understatement used for effect?

• Hot sins and cold sins

  The Christian tradition has long distinguished sins of heat, like lust, greed, and rage, from sins of coldness, like envy, contempt, and indifference. Dante froze the worst sinners in ice. Frost's pairing gives students a memorable way to examine both kinds of disorder in their own lives.

  • Which sins would you call hot and which cold? Explain your sorting.
  • Why might Dante have placed the deepest sin in ice instead of fire?
  • What virtues are the remedies for desire out of control and for hatred?

Context

Frost wrote Fire and Ice in the years just after the First World War, when the war and the influenza pandemic had left many readers wondering whether civilization could survive. Scientists of the period also discussed whether the earth would finally be burned or frozen as the sun changed, so the question in the opening lines was in the air.

Composition

The poem appeared in Harper's Magazine in December 1920. Frost placed it in the Grace Notes section of New Hampshire (Henry Holt, 1923), a book of a long title poem, longer Notes, and short lyrics; New Hampshire won the 1924 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.

Reception

It became one of Frost's most widely anthologized poems and a classroom favorite, because its brevity invites close reading of every word. Its title phrase has been borrowed many times, and readers often set it beside Dante's Inferno and other visions of the end of the world.

Comparisons

• The Divine Comedy

  Dante's Inferno ends not in flames but in the frozen lake of Cocytus, where traitors are locked in ice; Frost's pairing of ice with hate echoes that medieval picture of the coldest sin.

• The Second Coming

  Yeats, writing in 1919, also imagines the end of an age after the Great War, but in prophetic, violent images; Frost treats a similar fear with dry understatement.

• Ozymandias

  Shelley shows a proud ruler's works destroyed by time; Frost suggests the destroyer may be the human heart itself.

• Nothing Gold Can Stay

  A companion Grace Note from the same book, which turns from the end of the world to the passing of every early beauty.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• The phrase some say, which makes the poem begin as an overheard debate the speaker then joins.
• The word tasted in line 3: the speaker knows desire from experience, not from theory.
• How fire is matched with desire and ice with hate.
• The shrinking lines at the end and the cool understatement of would suffice.

Key terms and names

Desire

Strong wanting; in the poem the hot, consuming passion that Frost pairs with fire.

Suffice

To be enough; the last word of the poem, chosen for its flat, unexcited sound.

Understatement

Saying less than a situation deserves, so the reader feels the weight of what is left unsaid.

Metaphor

A comparison that treats one thing as another; here fire stands for desire and ice for hate.

Grace notes

In music, small ornamental notes; Frost used the term for the short lyrics at the end of New Hampshire.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension What two opinions about the end of the world does the poem begin with?
2. Comprehension What reasons does the speaker give first for favoring fire and then for thinking ice would also work?
3. Interpretation Why does Frost link fire with desire and ice with hate? Is the match convincing to you?
4. Interpretation What is the effect of ending the poem with the short, flat phrase and would suffice?
5. Interpretation Why might the speaker say that the world could perish twice?
6. Big Question Are the hot sins, like greed and rage, or the cold sins, like hatred and indifference, more dangerous to a person or a society?
7. Big Question If the forces that could end the world are already in the human heart, what could change the ending?

Faith Connections

• Matthew 24:12 (Scripture)

  Jesus warns that because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold, a picture close to Frost's ice: a world ruined by hearts gone cold as well as by burning passion.

• James 4:1-2 (Scripture)

  James traces fightings and wars to the lusts that war in our members, the same root in desire that Frost calls fire.

• 2 Peter 3:10-13 (Scripture)

  Peter speaks of the elements melting with fervent heat, but places that end inside God's promise of new heavens and a new earth; Frost names the destruction and offers no such hope, which a Christian reader should notice.

• Dante, Inferno XXXII-XXXIV (Great Conversation)

  Dante puts traitors at the bottom of Hell frozen in the ice of Cocytus, imagining cold betrayal, not hot passion, as the deepest sin.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: People disagree whether the world will end in fire or ice; the speaker's experience of desire makes him side with fire; his knowledge of hate convinces him that ice would also be enough; therefore the forces that could destroy the world are already familiar from the human heart.

Rhetorical device: Understatement. Ice, the speaker says, is also great for destruction and would suffice, a mild phrase for the end of everything.

Debate: Resolved: Hatred is more destructive than desire.

Memory Work

Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice

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

Writing Prompts

Essay: Argue whether Fire and Ice is mainly a poem about the end of the world or about the human heart, using the words tasted, desire, and hate as evidence.

Comparison with The Divine Comedy: Compare Frost's pairing of ice with hate to Dante's frozen lake of Cocytus at the bottom of the Inferno. What does each writer suggest about the coldest kinds of sin?

Creative Prompts

• Poetry

  Write a nine-line poem about two ways something you care about could be lost, such as a friendship or a team, pairing each with a feeling, and end with a short, quiet line.

• Classroom

  Hold a short debate: one side argues that desire is the more dangerous passion, the other that hatred is, and each speaker must quote a line from the poem and give one example from history or literature.

• Essay

  Explain how Frost uses rhyme, line length, and understatement in Fire and Ice to make a calm voice deliver a frightening idea.

Further Reading

• New Hampshire: A Poem with Notes and Grace Notes, Robert Frost

  The 1923 book, later awarded the Pulitzer Prize, in which all three of these short poems were collected.

• The Poetry of Robert Frost, Edward Connery Lathem (ed.)

  The standard collected edition; note that its punctuation sometimes differs from the first printings.

• Robert Frost: The Work of Knowing, Richard Poirier

• Robert Frost: A Life, Jay Parini