The Book of Lamentations by David R. Slavitt (9780801866173)

Description - The Book of Lamentations by David R. Slavitt

A translation of and meditation upon the Book of Lamentations, the biblical account of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 587 BC, on the ninth day of the Jewish month of Av-Tish'a b'Av. (Six centuries later the Romans destroyed the second Temple on the same day.) Most of the Jewish population was deported to Babylon, and the ensuing period came to be known as the Babylonian Captivity. According to tradition, the Book of Lamentations was written in response to this political, social and religious crisis. The five poems composing the book express Israel's sorrow, brokenness, and bewilderment before God. Tish'a b'Av is the day on which observant Jews fast, pray and mourn. It is the day on which they grieve for every terrible thing that happens in this world. It is the worst day of the year. Slavitt's meditation provides a context for reading the scriptural text. Cast in the same style as the Hebrew poetry, his meditation recounts how sorrow and catastrophe have characterized so much of the history of the Jewish people, from their enslavement in Egypt to the Holocaust of Nazi Germany. Slavitt attempts to reproduce the Hebrew acrostics.
In the original, each verse begins with a different letter of the Hebrew alphabet in sequential order; Slavitt reproduces this effect using the first 22 letters of the English alphabet.

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