“Amoretti XXX: My Love is like to ice, and I to fire” Summary

“Amoretti XXX: My Love is like to ice, and I to fire” Themes

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  The Power of Love

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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Amoretti XXX: My Love is like to ice, and I to fire”

• Lines 1-4

  My Love is like to ice, and I to fire:
  How comes it then that this her cold so great
  Is not dissolved through my so hot desire,
  But harder grows the more I her entreat?

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 5-8

  Or how comes it that my exceeding heat
  Is not allayed by her heart-frozen cold,
  But that I burn much more in boiling sweat,
  And feel my flames augmented manifold?

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 9-12

  What more miraculous thing may be told,
  That fire, which all things melts, should harden ice,
  And ice, which is congeal’d with senseless cold,
  Should kindle fire by wonderful device?

  

  

  

  

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• Lines 13-14

  Such is the power of love in gentle mind,
  That it can alter all the course of kind.

  

  

  

  

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“Amoretti XXX: My Love is like to ice, and I to fire” Symbols

• 

  Ice

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• 

  Fire

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“Amoretti XXX: My Love is like to ice, and I to fire” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

• Simile

  

  

  

  

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• Metaphor

  

  

  

  

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• Assonance

  

  

  

  

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• Alliteration

  

  

  

  

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• Caesura

  

  

  

  

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• Paradox

  

  

  

  

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• Rhetorical Question

  

  

  

  

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“Amoretti XXX: My Love is like to ice, and I to fire” Vocabulary

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• Entreat
• Exceeding
• Allayed
• Heart-frozen
• Augmented
• Manifold
• Congeal'd
• Wonderful
• Device
• Gentle
• Kind

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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Amoretti XXX: My Love is like to ice, and I to fire”

• Form

• Meter

• Rhyme Scheme

“Amoretti XXX: My Love is like to ice, and I to fire” Speaker

“Amoretti XXX: My Love is like to ice, and I to fire” Setting

Literary and Historical Context of “Amoretti XXX: My Love is like to ice, and I to fire”

More “Amoretti XXX: My Love is like to ice, and I to fire” Resources

• External Resources

  • "Amoretti" Sonnet Cycle — Read more about "Amoretti," the sequence in which "My Love is like to ice, and I to fire" appears as number 30.

  • The Sonnet Form — Learn more about the history of this famous poetic form, including the Spenserian variety.

  • Edmund Spenser Biography — Read up on Edmund Spenser's life and literary works. 

  • Love Poetry in Renaissance England — Spenser wasn't alone in writing about the passions of the heart. Learn more about Renaissance love poetry here.

  • "My Love is like to ice, and I to fire" Read Aloud — Listen to a recording of the sonnet.

• LitCharts on Other Poems by Edmund Spenser

  • Prothalamion

  • Sonnet 75: One day I wrote her name upon the strand