Robert Frost, Fire and Ice

Recorded in November 2021. Published in 1920. A comparison between the destructive power of fiery passion, and that of cold-blooded hatred.

"In an anecdote he recounted in 1960 in a 'Science and the Arts' presentation, the prominent astronomer Harlow Shapley claims to have inspired 'Fire and Ice.' Shapley describes an encounter which he had with Frost a year before the poem was published, in which Frost, noting that Shapley was the astronomer of his day, asked him how the world would end. Shapley responded that either the sun would explode and incinerate the Earth; or that the Earth would somehow escape this fate, only to end up slowly freezing in deep space. Shapley was surprised at seeing 'Fire and Ice' in print a year later; and referred to it as an example of how science can influence the creation of art, or clarify its meaning."