Critical Analysis of "Fire and Ice"

Critical Analysis of "Fire and Ice" One said, "Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words." Four time Pulitzer Prize winning American poet, teacher, and lecturer, Robert Frost quoted this. Frost was born in 1874 and died in January of 1963. He lived in New England for practically his whole life, only moving to England for a short time to pursue his writing career in which he wrote many popular and oft-quoted poems. In his poem, "Fire and Ice", Frost uses imagery, diction and metaphors to create the themes of desire and hate, nature and its meaning, and opposites. Tom Hanson figures that the speaker is in first person in "Fire and Ice". (Hanson 27) The speaker simply expresses an opinion instead of telling a story or receiving an insight. Sabine Sautter Leger states that the speaker insists that "from what I've tasted of desire," fire is more likely a deadly instrument. (Leger 113) "At least a fiery end might allow one to derive a certain pleasure or satisfaction from the passion that leads to our ultimate desire." (113) On the other hand, hatred only leads to destruction too quickly. (113) Yet the speakers wisdom is great enough for he knows that "for destruction ice/ is also great/ and would suffice." (113) There is no specific audience in Frost's poem. The general topic is familiar to the readers of the twentieth- century literature, which is the end of the world. (Leger 113) It is thought that after Frost's experience in World War I, his lines referring to "ice" may speak to the calamity and misfortune the world suffered during this period. (113) "Fire and Ice" Poetry for Students states that the poem does not have a pastoral setting. (Fire and Ice 56) It is one of the very few of Frost poems that doesn't. (56) The specific time and place in which the poem was written is unknown, although it first appeared in 1920. (56) In the short nine lines of the poem, you make a rare exit from Frosts "idyllic New

Cited: " 'Fire and Ice ' Robert Frost 1923." Poetry For Students. Ed. Mary K. Ruby. Vol. 7. Detroit: Gale, 2000. 56-64. Hanson, Tom. "Frost 's 'Fire and Ice. '" Expicator. 59.1 (Fall2000): 27. Academic Search Premier. EBSCOhost. Abilene, TX, Wylie High School. 9 March 2007 <http://web.ebscohost.com> Leger, Sabine S. "Fire and Ice." The Robert Frost Encyclopdia. Eds. Nancy Lewis Juten & John Zubizarreta. London: Greenwood, 2001. 112-114. Meyer, Bruce. "Critical Essay on 'Fire and Ice '." Poetry For Students. Ed. Mary K. Ruby. Vol. 7. Detroit: Gale, 2000. 62-64. Serio, John R. "Frost 's 'Fire and Ice ' and 'Dantes Inferno '." Explicator 57.4 (Summer1999): 218. Academic Search Premier. EBSCOhost. Abilene, TX, Wylie High School. 9 March 2007 <http://web.ebscohost.com> Thompson, Lawrance. Fire and Ice: The Art And Thought of Robert Frost. New York: Russell & Russell, 1961.