Lament

Jan Kochanowski with dead daughter in painting inspired by the poet's Laments

A lament or lamentation is a passionate expression of grief, often in music, poetry, or song form. The grief is most often born of regret, or mourning. Laments can also be expressed in a verbal manner in which participants lament about something that they regret or someone that they have lost, and they are usually accompanied by wailing, moaning and/or crying.[1] Laments constitute some of the oldest forms of writing, and examples exist across human cultures.

  1. ^ Piotr Michalowski, trans., Lamentation over the Destruction of Sumer and Ur (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1989), 39–62; cited in Nancy Lee, Lyrics of Lament: From Tragedy to Transformation (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2009)

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