Jeremiad

The word is named after the biblical prophet Jeremiah, and comes from biblical works attributed to him, the Book of Jeremiah and the Book of Lamentations. The Book of Jeremiah chronicles the downfall of the Kingdom of Judah, and asserts that this is because its rulers have broken the covenant with the Lord. The Lamentations, similarly, lament the fall of the kingdom of Judah after the conquest prophesied by Jeremiah has occurred: The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language defines Jeremiad as: "a literary work or speech expressing a bitter lament or a righteous prophecy of doom", as well as being form of lamentation; an utterance of grief or sorrow; a complaining tirade: used with a spice of ridicule or mockery, implying either that the grief itself is unnecessarily great, or that the utterance of it is tediously drawn out and attended with a certain satisfaction to the utterer. Its third definition is "a tale of sorrow, disappointment, or complaint; a doleful story; a dolorous tirade; – generally used satirically". Merriam-Webster dictionary defines Jeremiad as "a prolonged lamentation or complaint; also: a cautionary or angry harangue". == Use in American culture ==

The jeremiad was a favorite literary device of the Puritans, and was used in prominent early evangelical sermons like "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" by Jonathan Edwards. Besides Jonathan Edwards, such jeremiads can be found in every era of American history, including John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and James Fenimore Cooper. The term has also found use in American literature. Works by Norman Mailer (The Armies of the Night), Thomas Pynchon (The Crying of Lot 49), Nathanael West (The Day of the Locust) and Hubert Selby (Last Exit to Brooklyn) were interpreted as jeremiads, as were older works of American literature such as Herman Melville's The Confidence-Man or William Faulkner's Southern literature. The work of Robert Bork has also been described as a jeremiad. Extending that tradition in a reflective vein is the autobiographical work of freed American slave Frederick Douglass, who lamented the moral corruption that slavery wrought on America – from both a Jeffersonian and Christian tradition. Role in American politics According to the Canadian literary scholar Sacvan Bercovitch, in a typical American jeremiad, the biblical promise of a perfect society contradicts the actual mistakes of American society. The jeremiad thus has the function of a social corrective in that it links salvation to the righteous behavior of Americans. Bercovitch found this pattern in many political speeches. America is described as a world and salvation history experiment with a role model character, as a vision and also cited self-accusatory and apocalyptic tones. It corresponds to a civil religious tradition of rhetorical millennialism. ==See also==