| dc.description.abstract | A prominent female voice, that of the personification of “Daughter Zion,” emerges from the poetry of Lamentations 1-2, demanding divine justice in the wake of disaster. Using a theoretical framework that draws upon reception history and feminist literary criticism, this dissertation investigates Daughter Zion’s emergence and erasure and explores possibilities for Lamentations’ renewed relevance for trauma survivors. Daughter Zion’s speech in the Hebrew Lamentations constitutes a protest of the facile theology that sin is an adequate explanation for suffering. The Mesopotamian roots of her personification constitute the grounds of Daughter Zion’s authoritative stance within Lamentations. However, within not only biblical, intertextual uses of Lamentations, but also Jewish and Christian interpretation, Daughter Zion quickly loses her prominence as male figures (e.g. Jeremiah, the “man” of Lam. 3, and Jesus Christ) replace her. When interpreters erase Daughter Zion’s voice, the “Lamentations” they construe quickly degenerates into a victim-blaming theological model. Yet the traditional patriarchal gendering of poetry as “emotional” and thus “female” ironically gives license for Daughter Zion’s voice to remain in some poetic receptions of Lamentations. These poetic afterlives of Daughter Zion invite an imaginative reclamation of Lamentations as a text for ministry with survivors of sexualized violence. | |
