Sonnet 30

Edmund Spenser Sonnet 30 (Fire and Ice)

!

My love is like to ice, and I to fire: a

how comes it then that this her cold so great b

is not dissolv'd through my so hot desire, a

but harder grows, the more I her entreat? b

!

Or how comes it that my exceeding heat c

is not delayed by her heart frozen cold, d

but that I burn much more in boiling sweat, c

and feel my flames augmented manifold? d

!

What more miraculous thing may be told e

that fire, which all thing melts, should harden ice: f

and ice which is congealed with senseless cold, f

should kindle fire by wonderful device? e

!

Such is the pow'r of love in gentle mind g

that it can alter all the course of kind. g

!

Spenser exemplifies the use of unrealistic comparisons to highlight the comparison of his affection in juxtaposition to his lover’s distain. Line one, “My love is like to ice,” a smilie, followed by metaphor, “and I to Fire,” connotes antonyms “fire” and “ice” in order to illustrate the quickly diminishing affair. When analyzing the properties of “fire” and “ice,” one would collate the disappearance of ice when introduced to the heat produce by a flame. The lover’s devotion diminishes away, significantly the same as ice when exposed to warmth, which is connected to the speaker’s “fire.” Line four exclaims how the speaker’s love “harder grows,” literative- personification, in relation to the desire for his lover to reveal alike feelings, clarified by use of cacophonous-diction “entreat.” The second couplet will reveal a two-line imagery, “Or how comes it that my exceeding heat is not delayed by her heart frozen cold,” (5-6) exhibiting the speaker’s relentless devotion devoted, which has been prolonged by the lover’s icy heart.