His power as a poet arises from the way his lines create tensely divided feelings about evil, composed of both fascination and revulsion. E ACH of these tales concentrates on a particular form of evil. And in each case evil has a strong presence, a perverse stature not reduced or redeemed by any other force in the story. In order to deal with this vast subject on a small scale, I must leave aside major figures like Milton's Satan and Goethe's clownish Mephistopheles. Instead I shall comment on three short quotations that may concentrate the matter for us.
Evil is easy.
But there is a kind of evil as difficult to identify as what is called good, and often this particular evil passes for good because of this trait. Indeed, one needs an extraordinary greatness of soul to attain it as much as to attain good. But he provided too little evidence to guide our conjectures, offering a riddle without a solution. Perhaps that is presumed evident. I think he has.