"[3] 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 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.

The poem's meter is an irregular mix of iambic tetrameter and dimeter, and the rhyme scheme (which is ABA ABC BCB) suggests but departs from the rigorous pattern of Dante's terza rima.

[citation needed] In a 1999 article, John N. Serio claims that the poem is a compression of Dante's Inferno.

[5] John N. Serio praises the poem for its compactness, arguing that "Fire and Ice" signaled for Frost "a new style, tone, manner, [and] form" and that its casual tone masks the serious question it poses to the reader.