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The ''Laments'' (also ''Lamentations'' or ''Threnodies''; (ポーランド語:Treny)) are a series of nineteen threnodies (elegies) by Jan Kochanowski. Written in Polish and published in 1580, they are a highlight of Polish Renaissance literature, and one of Kochanowski's signature achievements.〔(Poet's Corner: "Jan Kochanowski's ''Threnodies'' )", in ''Warsaw Voice'', no. 43 (470) (October 26, 1997). Includes ''Threnody V''.〕〔( "Jan KOCHANOWSKI )", by Prof. Edmund Kotarski, in the ''Virtual Library of Polish Literature''.〕〔("The ''Threnodies'' of Jan Kochanowski" ). Excerpts from the book, ''Jan Kochanowski, The Threnodies, and The Dismissal of the Greek Envoys'', by Barry Keane. Includes ''Threnodies'' I, III, VI, XII and XIX.〕 ==Composition== Jan Kochanowski was the greatest Polish poet and the greatest Slavic poet prior to the 19th century,〔Paul Murray, (The Fourth Friend: Poetry in a Time of Affliction ), Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture 8.3 (2005) 19–39.〕 when this title passed to Adam Mickiewicz. Kochanowski wrote the ''Laments'' on the occasion of the 1579 death of his daughter Urszula (in English, "Ursula").〔〔 Little is known of Urszula (or ''Urszulka''—"little Ursula"), except that at her death she was two and a half years old. Her tender age has caused some critics to question Kochanowski's truthfulness, when he describes her as a budding poetess — a "Slavic Sappho." There is, however, no doubt as to the unaffected sentiments expressed in the nineteen Roman-numbered ''Laments'', of varying length, which still speak to readers across the four and a quarter centuries since they were composed. The poems express Kochanowski's boundless grief; and, standing in sharp contrast to his previous works, which had advocated such values as stoicism, can be seen as the poet's own critique of his earlier work. In a wider sense, they show a thinking man of the Renaissance at a moment of crisis when he is forced, through suffering and the stark confrontation of his ideals with reality, to re-evaluate his former humanistic philosophy of life.〔 The ''Laments'' belong to a Renaissance poetic genre of grief (threnody, or elegy), and the entire work comprises parts characteristic of epicedia: the first poems introduce the tragedy and feature a eulogy of the decedent; then come verses of lamentation, demonstrating the magnitude of the poet's loss and grief; followed at last by verses of consolation and instruction.〔 Kochanowski, while drawing on the achievements of classical poets such as Homer, Cicero, Plutarch, Seneca and Statius, as well as on later works by Petrarch and his own Renaissance contemporaries such as Pierre de Ronsard, stepped outside the borders of known genres, and his ''Laments'' constitute a mixed form ranging from epigram to elegy to epitaph, not to mention psalmodic song.〔〔 When the ''Treny'' were published (1580), Kochanowski was criticized for having taken as the subject of his ''Laments'' the death of a young child, against the prevailing literary convention that this form should be reserved for "great men" and "great events."〔〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Laments (Kochanowski)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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