![]() ![]() Speaking of the structure of the poem, Thompson observes as follows: In Thompson’s words, “the poem Fire and Ice is a masterpiece of condensation.”The poem is wrapped up in an epigram speculating about the end of the world. Ideas have been packed up into the texture of this poem. It is very close-knit, a glaring example of the style of condensation. These passions are inevitable in the drama of human life.įire and Ice sums up the process of world-destruction. The last line confirms the poet’s belief in the two passions possessing enormous destructive power. ![]() Symbolically interpreting the poem, fire stands for the heat of love and passion, while ice for the cold of hate. Possibly the poem holds out the poet’s belief that opposed extremes most elemental in the long drama of mankind and desire and reason, heart and mind. But there is also a further suggestion: these two extremes are made so to encompass life as to be gathering up of all that may exist between them all that may be swept away by them.” Coupled with this is the hint of the destructive power of these two extremes of human passion, cataclysmic power. ![]() “The analogy, here implied, establishes a comparison between the heat of the love or passion and the cold of the hate. Both these passions are made to look more terrible by understatement. The theme of the poem is the destructiveness of the passions of love and hate. ![]()
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