Klagan är en central del i Gamla testamentet och uttrycker sig i olika former. I Habackuk och Psaltaren 74 så möter vi två olika slags klagande samtal från människan till Gud, men bara i Habackuk så svarar Gud människan. Det väcker tankar gällande vikten av Guds respons på människans klagande bön som kräver ett svar. Människans bild av Gud och hur teologin förändras beror på om Gud väljer att svara och en dialog påbörjas, eller om människan blir stående själv i den klagande monolog som han ropar ut utan svar från Gud.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how legal metaphors are used, developed and valuated through the book of Job. By the method of close reading I analyze the speeches of Job in order to investigate if and how the legal metaphors maintain tension between source and main domain, if they are meaningful, are used in a creative way and developed through the book of Job. The legal language is used by the prophets to explain the suffering of the people by ascribing God to the roles of prosecutor and judge who punishes the people for their violation of the covenant. In the book of Job the friends of Job represent tradition. They promote the theory of retribution and claim that Job is being judged and punished for his sins. Job breaks with the tradition and wish es to meet God in court, and assigns different legal roles to God; plaintiff, accused, witness, his legal representative and the criminal. Through out the book of Job the tension between God and all these different roles is maintained and discussed. Job cannot meet God in court because they are unequal and there is no one who has authority over God. To behold God criminally accused seems inappropriate because God is the foundation of justice. However Job keeps using the metaphors in his complaint before God. The oath in chapter 31 shows the absurdity to put all different legal roles of God into one model but nevertheless shows how the legal metaphors are useful as a language of complaint. In the speeches of God there are no legal metaphors and Job is responding by admitting his limitation in explaining the works of God and by promising to be quiet. The friends of Job are being rebuked for having talked wrong about God. They used the legal metaphors to explain God and the works of God. The legal metaphors are not to be used as explanatory models but provide a platform for the innocent to form their complaint for vindication.

The mythic story of Niobe, who loses her children due to hubris and is eventually transformed into a crying rock on Mount Sipylos, is well known and rearticulated throughout classical Greek literature. In this master’s thesis I aim to examine fragment 154a of Aeschylus’ lost tragedy Niobe in order to show the significance of the tragic re-enactment of silence and grief. Furthermore, I argue that the fragment of Aeschylus manifests political and aesthetic aspects that enable an immersed and widened understanding of the genre. Loraux (1997/2002) and Montiglio (2000) indicate that there might be a female correlate to the epic tradition of safeguarding honour after death. As I point out in this thesis, there is a potential gap in the study of how ancient Greek literature reenacts such alternative themes and experiences of memory and oblivion. A decisive consequence of the analysis is the new understanding of a tragic hero(ine) inverting the ancient epic tradition of remembrance, glory, and immortality typically accompanying male heroes. By means of classical perspectives on grief, as well as more recent studies of acoustic aesthetics in ancient Greek culture (Nooter 2017), the thesis demonstrates how Niobe can be viewed as a prime symbol of the tragic female, whose resistance to forget resonates throughout the tragic corpus.