Passion, fire, ardor, tempestuousness are D'Annunzio's dominant characteristics. His works fairly blaze with gorgeous color and tropical warmth. In "The Flame of Life," the lovers burn with the white heat of D'Annunzio's own passion, which is raised to permanence and dignity by the poignant spirit of sadness and tragedy that tinges love as this typically Latin writer conceives it. The work is largely autobiographical and the "elderly actress" and the "young rhetorician" are world-famous figures drawn from life.