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.
In many oral traditions, both early and modern, the lament has been a genre usually performed by women:[4] Batya Weinbaum made a case for the spontaneous lament of women chanters in the creation of the oral tradition that resulted in the Iliad[5] 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 Shelley's "Adonais" or Matthew Arnold's "Thyrsis".[6]
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".[8] Another way of looking at it is all the more basic: laments simply being "appeals for divine help in distress".[9] 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.[9] Examples of a general format of this, both in the individual and communal laments, can be seen in Psalm 3 and Psalm 44 respectively.[9]
A heroine's lament is a conventional fixture of baroqueopera seria, accompanied usually by strings alone, in descending tetrachords.[10] Because of their plangent cantabile melodic lines, evocatively free, non-strophic construction and adagio pace, operatic laments have remained vividly memorable soprano or mezzo-soprano arias 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 is notable.[11]
In modernity, discourses about melancholia and 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.[13]
Scottish laments
The purely instrumental lament is a common form in piobaireachd music for the Scottish bagpipes. "MacCrimmon's Lament" dates to the Jacobite uprising of 1745. The tune is held to have been written by Donald Ban MacCrimmon, piper to the MacLeods of Dunvegan, who supported the Hanoverians. It is said that Donald Ban, who was killed at Moy in 1746, had an intimation that he would not return.[clarification needed][14]
A well-known Gaelic lullaby is "Griogal Cridhe" ("Beloved Gregor"). It was composed in 1570 after the execution of Gregor MacGregor by the Campbells. The grief-stricken widow, Marion Campbell, describes what happened as she sings to her child.[15]
"Cumhadh na Cloinne" ("Lament for the Children") is a pìobaireachd composed by Padruig Mór MacCrimmon in the early 1650s. It is generally held to be based on the loss of seven of MacCrimmon's eight sons within a year to smallpox,[16][17] possibly brought to Skye by a Spanish trading vessel. Poet and writer Angus Peter Campbell, quoting poet Sorley MacLean, has called it "one of the great artistic glories of all Europe".[18] Author Bridget MacKenzie, in Piping Traditions of Argyll, suggests that it refers to the slaughter of the MacLeod's fighting Cromwell's forces at the Battle of Worcester. It may have been inspired by both.[19]
Other Scottish laments from outside of the piobaireachd tradition include "Lowlands Away"[citation needed], "MacPherson's Rant", and "Hector the Hero".
Musical form
There is a short, free musical form appearing in the Baroque and then again in the Romantic periods, called lament. It is typically a set of harmonic variations in homophonic texture, wherein the bass (Lament bass) descends through a tetrachord, usually one suggesting a minor mode.[citation needed]
Kinah (plural: kinnot) – Kinnot are traditional Hebrew poems recited on Tisha B'Av lamenting the destruction of the First and Second Temples and other historical catastrophes. (The term "kinah" also appears in the Bible, referring to lamentation).
^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)
^Margaret Alexiou, Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition (Cambridge University Press) 1974
^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.
^Batya Weinbaum, "Lament Ritual Transformed into Literature: Positing Women's Prayer as Cornerstone in Western Classical Literature" Journal of American Folklore114 No. 451 (Winter 2001:20–39).
Nancy C. Lee, Lyrics of Lament: From Tragedy to Transformation. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2010.
Marcello Sorce Keller, "Expressing, Communicating, Sharing and Representing Grief and Sorrow with Organised Sound (Musings in Eight Short Segments)", in Stephen Wild, Di Roy, Aaron Corn and Ruth Lee Martin (eds), One Common Thread – The Musical World of Lament – Thematic Issue of Humanities Research. Canberra, ANU University Press, vol. XIX, no. 3. 2013, 3–14
Claus Westermann, Praise and Lament in the Psalms. Westminster: John Knox Press, 1981. ISBN0-8042-1792-0.