A Study Guide For The Book Of Lamentations An Expose’ On Hope
Much More Than A Poignant Story
Lesson 4
The Literary And Structural Styles Of Lamentations Introduction:
I.
The literary style of Lamentations.
A.
The entire book of Lamentations is poetic in its form.
B.
Each chapter of the book is comprised of a poem making five poems in all and jointly given to further enhancement of the central poem.
C.
The poems use the literary style of an acrostic where the poem is built around the Hebrew alphabet.
II.
The Structure of Lamentations
A.
The author of Lamentations uses subtle (slight or restrained) literary devices to underpin his message.
B.
There are three literary devices used that are clearly important and all but one are easily discerned in an English translation.
1.
First, the author uses acrostics to demark sections of the work.
a.
An acrostic is a series of sentences whose first letters either spell out a message or run through the alphabet.
b.
The use of the authors’ acrostics are not all perfect.
1.
It is therefore important that we understand that they are not perfect because the author is speaking with variations to insert his perspective as well as the perspectives of God and the perspective of the city (Jerusalem) in a personified manner.
2.
The imperfect acrostics may well have several reasons for the authors’ usage as such. One such imperfection is seen in the reversal orders of several acrostics.