page_title: Fire and Ice (poem)
section_title: Compression of Dante's Inferno
hierarchical_section_title: Fire and Ice (poem) / Analysis / Compression of Dante's Inferno
caption_attribution_description: English: Illustration of Dante's Inferno Українська: Ілюстрація Пекла Данте
context_page_description: "Fire and Ice" is a popular poem by Robert Frost that discusses the end of the world, likening the elemental force of fire with the emotion of desire, and ice with hate. Published in December 1920 in Harper's Magazine and in 1923 in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book New Hampshire, "Fire and Ice" is one of Frost's best-known and most anthologized poems.
context_section_description: In a 1999 article, John N. Serio claims that the poem is a compression of Dante's Inferno. He draws a parallel between the nine lines of the poem with the nine rings of Hell, and notes that, like the downward funnel of the rings of Hell, the poem narrows considerably in the last two lines. Additionally, the rhyme scheme—ABA ABC BCB—he remarks, is similar to the one Dante invented for Inferno.
  Frost's diction further highlights the parallels between Frost's discussion of desire and hate with Dante's outlook on sins of passion and reason with sensuous and physical verbs describing desire and loosely recalling the characters Dante met in the upper rings of Hell: "taste" (recalling the Glutton), "hold" (recalling the adulterous lovers), and "favor" (recalling the hoarders). In contrast, hate is discussed with verbs of reason and thought ("I think I know.../To say...").
caption: The Nine Circles of Hell
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