Good and Evil

Once at a writers’ session (poets mainly) one attendee said the basic theme of literature was death. Well, she wasn’t an English major, and never learned that all great literature, for thousands and thousands of years, plus most of the not so great, depicts the struggle between good and evil. No one needs to be an English major to know that, but most readers have just probably not thought about it. The fiction works recommended on my blog to date, I vividly recall, illustrate this thesis. And among the nonfiction, surely Thomas Jefferson dealt with right and wrong in government matters, and Emlyn Williams in his autobiography. How can one tell his life story without including that struggle? And fiction books wouldn’t even exist without the portrayal of good versus evil. One of the most famous and enduring stories about right and wrong is Shakespeare’s Macbeth. And his Hamlet. And his King Lear. And his Othello. Say, do you have an hour or two to spare for this?

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