From Objective Observation to Subjective Participation: How the Speaking Voices in Lamentations Lead from Suffering toward Redemption

Abstract

<p>Lamentations is analyzed using synchronic poetic analysis supplemented with intertextual and dialogic criticism. Lamentations is read as a literary whole, with a focus on its metaphoric language and the dialogical interaction among the voices. The interaction of Daughter Zion and the Speaker plays a significant role in leading the community through its suffering. Significant here is the Daughter Zion metaphor, which evokes contrasting responses of judgment and pity. The Speaker experiences these attitudes as he dialogues with Zion and moves through detachment, sympathy, and empathy. Ultimately he identifies with the suffering of Zion and her search for hope as the imagery moves from the corporate to the individual. He then leads the suffering community from within in their first steps toward redemption. Lamentations demonstrates movement from judgment to pity, from detachment to empathy, from suffering to hope, and from the corporate through the individual to the corporate perspective once more.</p>