Unlike what you might think, the expression “everything is evil” is not an ethical assessment. Rather, it’s an existential one. This becomes apparent if we incorporate a bit more of the context: “Everything is evil. That is to say everything that is, is evil”.
These words belong to Giacomo Leopardi, an Italian poet of the 19th century – a literary giant with whom English-speaking audiences are not too familiar. One reason is that translating his poetry is considered notoriously difficult. Indeed, nobody dared to even attempt it until almost a century after his death.
At this point, I should make it clear: I’m not, by any stretch of the imagination, an authority on Leopardi’s poetry. Not even remotely. What I’m doing in this post is literally taking one of Leopardi’s most (in)famous passages out of context, to discuss why “everything is evil”. That is, why life is necessarily flawed.
