THE BIBLICAL BOOK OF LAMENTATIONS AS ONE OF THE ARCHETEXTS OF THE POETRY BY MARTIN OPITZ

Abstract

The paper is devoted to the research of biblical archetextuality connected with The Book of Lamentation (Lamentations of Jeremiah) in the poetry of the 17th century German poet Martin Opitz, the founder of German national poetry, who reformed the genre of paraphrase of the biblical texts. The poetics of M. Opitz’s religious and philosophical poem «The Songs of Lamentation of Jeremiah» (Die Klag-Lieder Jeremiae, 1626), in which the German poet gives his understanding of the tragedy of Germany in the Thirty Years’ War in the context of the Bible, is represented for the first time. He is also seeking the way of save from the social and spiritual crisis with the help of the religious and ethical concept of the Book of Lamentations. The motives of the Lamentations of Jeremiah can be also found in M. Opitz’s other works, in which, like in his paraphrase of the Lamentations, the synthesis of Classicism and Baroque is evident. It is proved that the features of Baroque are strengthened in M. Opitz’s poetry under the influence of the biblical poetics. For the first time in the German language Opitz created Jeremiad – a lyrical poem-lamentation and at the same time a poem-sermon that mourns the sufferings of the homeland and offered the confession of guilt, true repentance and faithfulness to God as the way of changing destiny.