Literary notes about LAMENT (AI summary)
The term "lament" in literature encompasses a broad spectrum of sorrowful expression, from personal grief to communal mourning. Authors employ it both as a verb and a noun to evoke deep emotional responses, such as the plaintive weeping of a bereaved community ([1], [2]) or the introspective sorrow of an individual mourning lost ideals or opportunities ([3], [4]). It often functions as a vehicle for dramatizing both historical and mythical tragedies, as seen when characters voice their despair in royal or heroic contexts ([5], [6]). In more ironic or tempered instances, the word captures a resigned acceptance of human misfortune, sometimes even diverging into subtle criticism of society’s or individuals’ inability to escape past woes ([7], [8]). Additionally, its use in ritualistic or lyrical passages emphasizes the timeless human need to mourn and communicate sorrow through art and ritual ([9], [10]).
- For two weeks, the people of the totem weep and lament, covering their bodies with white clay just as they do when they have lost a relative.
— from The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life by Émile Durkheim - That, from year to year, the daughters of Israel assemble together, and lament the daughter of Jephte the Galaadite, for four days.
— from The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete - Your late worthy representative I lament from my heart.
— from Toronto of Old by Henry Scadding - I knew them all once—my eyes could weep—but now they burn, for now, my soul is fixed, and fearless!—I lament
— from The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Ward Radcliffe - Lightly from fair to fair he flew, And loved to plead, lament, and sue— Suit lightly won and short-lived pain, For monarchs seldom sigh in vain.
— from Marmion: A Tale Of Flodden Field by Walter Scott - And her gates shall lament and mourn, and she shall sit desolate on the ground.
— from The Bible, Douay-Rheims, Complete - “I mean to be too rich to lament or to feel anything of the sort.
— from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen - ‘The path of my departure was free;’ and there was none to lament my annihilation.
— from Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley - Ὀδυρμός, οῦ, ὁ, (ὀδύρομαι, to lament, bewail) bitter lamentation, wailing, Mat. 2.18; meton.
— from A Greek-English Lexicon to the New Testament by William Greenfield - HONE AND HONERO, wailing expressions of lament or discontent.
— from The Alchemist by Ben Jonson