Laments

The 'Laments' are a series of nineteen threnodies (elegies) by Jan Kochanowski. They are a highlight of Polish Renaissance literature, and one of Kochanowski's signature achievements. The poems express Kochanowski's boundless grief; and, standing in sharp contrast to his previous works, which had advocated such values as stoicism, can be seen as the poet's own critique of his earlier work. In a wider sense, they show a thinking man of the Renaissance at a moment of crisis when he is forced, through suffering and the stark confrontation of his ideals with reality, to re-evaluate his former humanistic philosophy of life.