Editing Lament (section)

==History==
[[File:Egyptian mourners001.jpg|thumb|150px|Egyptian women weeping and lamenting]]
Many of the oldest and most lasting poems in human [[history]] have been laments.<ref>{{cite journal|first=Linda M.|last=Austin|title=The Lament and the Rhetoric of the Sublime|journal=[[Nineteenth-Century Literature]]|volume=53|number=3|date=December 1998|pages=279–306|doi=10.2307/2903041 |jstor=2903041 |postscript=,}} traces the literary rhetoric evoking a voice crying.</ref> The [[Lament for Sumer and Ur]] dates back at least 4000 years to ancient [[Sumer]], the world's first urban civilization. Laments are present in both the ''[[Iliad]]'' and the ''[[Odyssey]]'', and laments continued to be sung in [[elegiacs]] accompanied by the [[aulos]] in classical and [[Hellenistic]] Greece.<ref>Margaret Alexiou, ''Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition'' (Cambridge University Press) 1974</ref> Elements of laments appear in ''[[Beowulf]]'', in the [[Hindu]] [[Veda]]s, and in [[ancient Near Eastern]] religious texts. They are included in the [[City Lament|Mesopotamian City Laments]] such as the [[Lament for Ur]] and the [[Jew]]ish [[Tanakh]], or Christian [[Old Testament]].

In many oral traditions, both early and modern, the lament has been a genre usually performed by women:<ref>Alexiou 1974; Angela Bourke, "More in anger than in sorrow: Irish women's lament poetry", in Joan Newlon Radnor, ed., ''Feminist Messages: Coding in Women's Folk Culture'' (Urbana: Illinois University Press) 1993:160–182.</ref> Batya Weinbaum made a case for the spontaneous lament of women chanters in the creation of the oral tradition that resulted in the ''[[Iliad]]''<ref>Batya Weinbaum, "Lament Ritual Transformed into Literature: Positing Women's Prayer as Cornerstone in Western Classical Literature" ''[[Journal of American Folklore]]'' '''114''' No. 451 (Winter 2001:20–39).</ref> The material of lament, the "sound of trauma" is as much an element in the [[Book of Job]] as in the genre of [[pastoral elegy]], such as [[Percy Bysshe Shelley|Shelley]]'s "Adonais" or [[Matthew Arnold]]'s "Thyrsis".{{sfn|Austin|1998|pp=280f.}}

The [[Book of Lamentations]] or ''Lamentations of Jeremiah'' figures in the Old Testament. The ''[[Lamentation of Christ]]'' (under many closely variant terms) is a common subject from the [[Life of Christ in art|''Life of Christ'' in art]], showing Jesus' dead body being mourned after the [[Crucifixion of Jesus|Crucifixion]]. Jesus himself lamented over the prospective [[Fall of Jerusalem, AD 70|fall of Jerusalem]] as he and his disciples entered the city ahead of his [[Passion of Jesus|passion]].<ref>{{bibleverse||Luke|19:41–44|NKJV}}: see sub-heading for this section in the [[Jerusalem Bible]] (1966)</ref>

A lament in the Book of Lamentations or in the [[Psalms]], in particular in the Lament/Complaint Psalms of the [[Tanakh]], may be looked at as "a cry of need in a context of crisis when Israel lacks the resources to fend for itself".<ref>[[Walter Brueggemann]], ''An Unsettling God'' (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2009) 13</ref> Another way of looking at it is all the more basic: laments simply being "appeals for divine help in distress".<ref name=Coogan>[[Michael Coogan|Michael D. Coogan]], ''A Brief Introduction to the Old Testament'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009) 370</ref> These laments, too, often have a set format: an address to God, description of the suffering/anguish from which one seeks relief, a petition for help and deliverance, a curse towards one's enemies, an expression of the belief of ones innocence or a confession of the lack thereof, a vow corresponding to an expected divine response, and lastly, a song of thanksgiving.<ref name=Coogan /> Examples of a general format of this, both in the individual and communal laments, can be seen in [[Psalm 3]] and [[Psalm 44]] respectively.<ref name=Coogan />

The ''[[Lament of Edward II]]'', if it is actually written by [[Edward II of England]], is the sole surviving composition of his.

A heroine's lament is a conventional fixture of [[Baroque opera|baroque]] [[opera seria]], accompanied usually by strings alone, in [[descending tetrachord]]s.<ref>[[Ellen Rosand]], 2007. ''Opera in Seventeenth-Century Venice'' (University of California Press), "The lament aria: variations on a theme". pp. 377ff.</ref> Because of their plangent cantabile melodic lines, evocatively free, non-[[strophic]] construction and [[Tempo#Basic tempo markings|adagio]] pace, operatic laments have remained vividly memorable soprano or mezzo-soprano [[aria]]s even when separated from the emotional pathos of their operatic contexts. An early example is Ariadne's "Lasciatemi morire", which is the only survivor of [[Claudio Monteverdi]]'s lost ''Arianna''. [[Francesco Cavalli]]'s operas extended the ''lamento'' formula, in numerous exemplars, of which Ciro's "Negatemi respiri" from ''[[Ciro (opera)|Ciro]]'' is notable.<ref>"Negatemi respiri" and several others are noted by Rosand 2007:377f.</ref>

Other examples include [[Dido's Lament]] ("When I am laid in earth") ([[Henry Purcell]], ''[[Dido and Aeneas]]''), "[[Lascia ch'io pianga]]" ([[George Frideric Handel]], ''[[Rinaldo (opera)|Rinaldo]]''), "Caro mio ben" ([[Tommaso Giordani|Tomaso]] or [[Giuseppe Giordani]]). The lament continued to represent a musico-dramatic high point. In the context of [[opera buffa]], the Countess's lament, "[[Dove sono]]", comes as a surprise to the audience of [[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart]]'s ''[[The Marriage of Figaro]]'', and in [[Gioachino Rossini]]'s ''[[Barber of Seville]]'', Rosina's plaintive words at her apparent abandonment are followed, not by the expected lament aria, but by a vivid orchestral interlude of storm music. The heroine's lament remained a fixture in romantic opera, and the Marschallin's monologue in act 1 of ''[[Der Rosenkavalier]]'' can be understood as a penetrating psychological lament.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/15/arts/music/lushly-lamenting-the-wages-of-time-and-a-lost-golden-age.html|title=Lushly Lamenting the Wages of Time and a Lost Golden Age|author=[[Jeremy Eichler]]|date=15 March 2005|newspaper=[[The New York Times]]|access-date=4 April 2022|quote=the Marschallin's act 1 lament}}</ref>

In modernity, discourses about [[melancholia]] and [[Psychological trauma|trauma]] take the functional place ritual laments hold in premodern societies. This entails a shift from a focus on community and convention to individuality and authenticity.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Prade-Weiss |first=Juliane |title=Language of Ruin and Consumption: On Lamenting and Complaining |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |year=2020 |isbn=9781501344190 |location=New York |language=en}}</ref>