Abstract
This article offers a tragic reading of Lamentations, and then uses this reading to get at what is distinctive in the biblical book's theology. The tragic dimension of Lamentations is explicated by showing, first, that the biblical book shares important features, such as historical context, trajectory of the organizing pattern, setting, treatment of the problem of evil, and centrality of the tragic hero, with other tragedies in world literature, and, second, that the poet's tragic vision takes up and manipulates ideas and imagery well known from the Israelite literary tradition. A concluding section treats four issues that are central to the theology of Lamentations: the valuation of human suffering, the authentication of human defiance, the desire for divine and human compassion, and the theological relevance of aesthetics.
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