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Complaint

Genre
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A poem expressing grief, lamentation, or protest against an injustice

Detailed Definition
A Complaint is a traditional poetic genre expressing sorrow, injustice, or unrequited love, often structured as a monologue addressed to an absent or indifferent listener (e.g., Fortune, Love, or God); originating in medieval and Renaissance literature (e.g., Chaucer’s “Complaint unto Pity”), it blends lament with rhetorical argument, using hyperbole, apostrophe, and catalogues of suffering to seek redress or catharsis, and influenced later forms like the pastoral elegy and confessional lyric.
Example
Example in poetry:
Complaint: Chaucer’s “The Complaint unto Pity”; Donne’s “A Hymn to God the Father”: “Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun”; Contemporary complaint: “My phone died and took my soul with it” (original)
Additional Notes
Complaint is a lyric genre expressing sorrow, injustice, or unrequited love, often addressed to Fortune, Love, or a distant beloved; it overlaps with elegy and pastoral but emphasizes personal grievance.
Also Known As
Lament Grievance Protestive verse Sorrowful petition
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