Fire and Ice by Robert Frost

Just considering the title I expect the poem to be about something hot and something cold, like desire and passion for fire and something cold, like end and destruction for ice. Moreover it might be about relationships, for example the finish of a feeling or the conclusion of world. The word “and” connects two opposite words, because “fire” is linked to something hot and “ice” to something cold. The poet compares them because they both have a strong power.

The layout shows the composition consist in nine lines arranged in three stanzas. The first two consist of two lines are called couplets indeed the last one consist of five lines. Moreover you can understand that it is a poem because it is arranged into stanzas.

In the first stanza, the poet expressed two different people opinion, while in the second one he expressed his one. Moreover he agrees with the people who think that the world will end in fire because he has “tasted of desire”. The concept of opinion, which includes his opinion and the other ones, is exactly the element that binds the first two stanzas. In the first two stanzas the poet tells about fire while in the last one he tells about ice that link with destruction and perish, that is associated to die because when you die, your body is likes ice.

The rhyme scheme is AB AA BCBCB. In the first two lines there is an anaphora, indeed there is a repetition of “Some say” which also has an alliteration of “s”. The last stanza is completely composed of enjambment, indeed you can read it all in one breath, without stopping.

Lots of the words used are simple words (“world”, “fire”, “ice”, “desire”, “hate”, “destruction”) but there are also very complex words (“perish”, “suffice”), this choice makes you understand that the poet used different linguistic registers. For example the word “great” used in the penultimate line that it is an important word it is used with an ironical tone.