Emma Lazarus

• Born: 22 July 1849
• Birthplace: New York, New York
• Died: 19 November 1887 (Hodgkin's disease)
• Best Known As: Author of the poem on the Statue of Liberty

Emma Lazarus was an American writer of Portugese-Jewish ancestry whose 1883 poem, "The New Colossus," is inscribed on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. Lazarus grew up in a prosperous Jewish family in New York and began writing poems as a teenager. In 1886 her first collection, Poems and Translations, was published by her father. She attracted the attention and support of Ralph Waldo Emerson, and soon found herself a member in the elite literary circles of New York City. In the 1880s Lazarus was moved by the news of the Russian and Eastern European persecution of Jews to become more active as an advocate for Jewish immigrants. She published many well-received poems and essays, including "The New Colossus," now one of the most often quoted poems in U.S. history, especially the lines "Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, / The wretched refuse of your teeming shore." Upon returning to the U.S. from a trip to Europe, Lazarus, who was suffering from Hodgkin's disease, died at the age of 38. Her poem was placed on the Statue of Liberty in 1903. Her other works include Admetus and Other Poems (1871), The Spagnoletto: A Drama in Verse (1876), Songs of a Semite (1882) and the novel Alide: An Episode in Goethe's Life (1874).

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Emma Lazarus (1849-1887), American poet, is best known as a spokesperson for the Jewish people. Her faith in America as a haven for all the downtrodden peoples of the world is expressed in her poem in scribed on the Statue of Liberty.

Emma Lazarus was born in New York City on July 22, 1849. Her wealthy, cultured parents provided comforts and devotion, beginning with private tutors and summers at the seashore. At the age of 11 she began writing impassioned lyrics on traditional romantic themes and at 17 privately printed her first collection. Poems and Translations (public edition 1867) was followed by Admetus and Other Poems (1871). These poems so pleased Ralph Waldo Emerson that he invited Lazarus to visit him, thereby beginning a correspondence that lasted throughout her life.

Lazarus's work began appearing regularly in Lippincott's Magazine and Scribner's Monthly. In 1874 she published her first prose, Alide: An Episode of Goethe's Life. Her five-act drama, The Spagnoletto (1876), focuses on Italy in 1655, but as playwright she had more fervor than talent. Poetry was her true métier. Her translation of Heinrich Heine's Poems and Ballads (1881) was considered the best version of Heine in English at the time.

The turning point in Lazarus's life was the outbreak of violent anti-Semitism in Russia and Germany during the early 1880s. When a journalist defended these pogroms in the Century Magazine, Lazarus wrote the fervent reply "Russian Christianity versus Modern Judaism" in the next issue. From this moment she began a private crusade for her people. Her verse took on a new note of urgency, a call to Zionism, particularly in Songs of a Semite (1882) and in her play of 12th-century Jewish life, The Dance to Death. More importantly, she began to organize relief efforts for the thousands of immigrants crowding into Ward's Island and to write a series of articles for the magazine American Hebrew.

In 1883 Lazarus sailed for England, where she was received with great enthusiasm for her work in behalf of Jewish immigrants. She made so many friends among the Zionists that she returned in 1885, spending the next 2 years traveling in England, France, and Italy. Cancer cut her career short. She returned to New York City shortly before her death on Nov. 19, 1887. Lazarus's sonnet "The New Colossus" was engraved on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor before the dedication in 1886; it was a fitting commemoration of her faith in American ideals.

Further Reading

The Poems of Emma Lazarus (2 vols., 1889), the standard text, includes a biographical sketch by her sister. More recent is Emma Lazarus: Selections from Her Poetry and Prose, edited by Morris U. Schappes (1944; 3d ed. 1967). See also H. E. Jacob, The World of Emma Lazarus (1949), and Eve Merriam, Emma Lazarus: Woman with a Torch (1956).

Additional Sources

Angoff, Charles, Emma Lazarus, poet, Jewish activist, pioneer Zionist, New York: Jewish Historical Society of New York, 1979.

Young, Bette Roth, Emma Lazarus in her world: life and letters, Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1995.

Lazarus, Emma, 1849-87, American poet and essayist, b. New York City. Her early verse includes Admetus and Other Poems (1871) and The Spagnoletto (1876), a poetic drama. Enraged by the Russian pogroms of the 1880s, she became an impassioned spokeswoman for Judaism, writing many essays and the book of poems, Songs of a Semite (1882), which contains her best work. Her sonnet about the Statue of Liberty, "The New Colossus," was engraved on the statue's pedestal. Her other work includes translations of Heine.

Bibliography

See biographies by C. Angoff (1979) and E. Schor (2006).

(1849-1887)

1871	Admetus and Other Poems. After the publication of Lazarus's Poems and Translations while she was in her teens, the New York poet's second collection reworks the Admetus-Alcestis and Orpheus stories and the medieval tales of Lohengrin and Tannhäuser. It also contains a sequence of autobiographical lyrics and her earliest poem with a Jewish theme, first printed in 1867, "In the Jewish Synagogue at Newport," a response to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "The Jewish Cemetery at Newport." Lazarus asserts that "the sacred shrine" of the oldest extant American synagogue "is holy yet."
1874	Alide: An Episode of Goethe's Life. Lazarus's only novel reworks an incident recorded in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Autobiography of his brief, idyllic relationship with Frederica Brion. It would be followed by a verse drama, Spagnoletto, in 1876.
1882	Songs of a Semite: The Dance to Death and Other Poems. Reacting to the persecution of Jews in the Russian pogroms of 1882, Lazarus finds her distinctive voice and themes in her defense of the Jewish people. Included are important works such as "The Banner of the Jew," "The Crowing of the Red Cock," and "The Dance to Death." Lazarus's militancy concerning Jewish issues and women's rights are controversial, however.
1882	"An Epistle to the Hebrews." Lazarus begins a series of fourteen essays to be published in the American Hebrew through February 1883, commenting on Jewish history, culture, and the return to Palestine. She excoriates her fellow American Jews for assimilation and taking for granted their privileges and security, and she urges eastern European Jews to immigrate to Palestine.
1883	The New Colossus. Invited to write a poem for a literary auction to raise funds to build a pedestal for the Statue of Liberty, Lazarus creates her most famous work; the sonnet with the famous lines "Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free," which would be inscribed on the statue's pedestal in 1903.
1887	By the Waters of Babylon. Lazarus's poetic sequence is her first and last attempt at free verse. It presents a history of the Jewish diaspora.

Quotes:

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp! cries she with silent lips. Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me; I lift my lamp beside the golden door."

"Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,With conquering limbs astride from land to land;Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall standA mighty woman with a torch, whose flameIs the imprisoned lightning, and her nameMother of Exiles. From her beacon-handGlows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes commandThe air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp! cries sheWith silent lips. Give me your tired, your poor,Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

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