Emma Lazarus: July 22, 1849 – November 19, 1887

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Emma Lazarus was an AmericanJewish poet born in New York City.[1] She is best known for "The New Colossus", a sonnet written in 1883, containing the lines:


"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!"


The poem's lines appear on a bronze plaque placed on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty in 1903.[2]


That sonnet was written for and donated to an auction, conducted by the "Art Loan Fund Exhibition in Aid of the Bartholdi Pedestal Fund for the Statue of Liberty" to raise funds to build the pedestal.[3]


Personal Life

In 1948, Max Baym argued that Lazarus was romantically obsessed with Ralph Waldo Emerson.[4]


In 1949, H.E. Jacob's biography of Lazarus explained that she never married because her emotional world was "fixed so firmly on her father." Jacob cited Lazarus' play The Spagnoletto, which deals with a father's obsessive control over his daughter, as the source of this speculation.[5]


In 1951, Arthur Zeiger suggested that Lazurus's unpublished manuscript poem, "Assurance," was evidence of her having a "lesbian fantasy."[6]


Assurance
Last night I slept, and when I woke her kiss
Still floated on my lips. For we had strayed
Together in my dream, through some dim glade,
Where the shy moonbeams scarce dared light our bliss.
The air was dank with dew, between the trees,
The hidden glow-worms kindled and were spent.
Cheek pressed to cheek, the cool, the hot night-breeze
Mingled ouir hair, our breath, and came and went,
As sporting with our passion. Low and deep
Spake in mine ear her voice: "And didst thou dream,
This could be buried? This could be sleep?
And love be thrall to death! Nay, whatso seem,
Have faith, dear heart; this is the thing that is!"
Thereon I woke, and on my lips her kiss.


In 1957, Eve Merriam's biography, Emma Lazarus: Woman with a Torch, suggested..... Research Request: ADD WITH CITATION


More recently, in 1995, Bette Roth Young suggested that Lazarus and Charles deKay (brother of Emma's friend, Helena deKay Gilder) were lovers.[7]


Background

Lazarus was the fourth of seven children of Moshe Lazarus and Esther Nathan, Sephardic Jews whose families, originally from Portugal, had been settled in New York since the colonial period. She was related through her mother to Benjamin N. Cardozo, Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court. .[8]


From an early age, she studied American and British literature, as well as several languages, including German, French, and Italian. Her writings attracted the attention of Ralph Waldo Emerson who corresponded with her until his death.


Literary career

Lazarus wrote her own poems and edited many adaptations of German poems, notably those of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Heinrich Heine. She also wrote a novel and two plays. Lazarus' close friend Rose Hawthorne Lathrop was inspired by "The New Colossus" to found the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne.[9]


The New Colossus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"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!" |source=Emma Lazarus, 1883 }}


Jewish Ancestry

Lazarus began to be more interested in her Jewish ancestry after reading the George Eliot novel, Daniel Deronda, and as she heard of the Russian pogroms that followed the assassination of Tsar Nicholas II in 1881. As a result of this anti-Semitic violence, thousands of destitute Ashkenazi Jews emigrated from Russia to New York. This led Lazarus to write articles on the subject as well as the poem for which she was most famous in her lifetime, "Song of a Semite" (1882). Lazarus began at this point to advocate on behalf of indigent Jewish refugees and helped establish the Hebrew Technical Institute in New York to provide vocational training to help destitute Jewish immigrants become self-supporting.


She traveled twice to Europe, first in 1883 and again from 1885 to 1887.[10]


She returned to New York City seriously ill after her second trip and died two months later on November 19, 1887, most likely from Hodgkin's lymphoma.


She is also an important forerunner of the Zionist movement. She argued for the creation of a Jewish homeland thirteen years before Theodor Herzl began to use the term Zionism.[11]


Lazarus is buried in Beth-Olom Cemetery, in Brooklyn.


Emma Lazarus was honored by the Office of the Manhattan Borough President in March 2008 and was included in a map of Women's Rights Historic Sites related or dedicated to important women.[12]


Works

Lazarus, Emma. The Poems of Emma Lazarus, New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company. 1888.[13]


Bibliography

  • Eiselein, Gregory. Emma Lazarus: Selected Poems and Other Writings. USA: Broadview Press, 2002. ISBN 1-55111-285-X.
  • Jacob, Heinrich Eduard. The World of Emma Lazarus. New York: Schocken, 1949; New York: Kessing Publishers, 2007, ISBN 1-4325-1416-4.
  • Lazarus, Emma. Emma Lazarus: Selected Poems. USA: Library of America, 2005. ISBN 1-931082-77-4.
  • Moore, H. S. Liberty's Poet: Emma Lazarus. USA: TurnKey Press, 2004. ISBN 0-9754803-4-0.
  • Schor, Esther. Emma Lazurus. New York: Schocken, 2006. ISBN 0-8052-4216-3. Randomhouse.com
  • Young, B. R. Emma Lazarus in Her World: Life and Letters. USA: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1997. ISBN 0-8276-0618-4.


References

  1. ↑ Adapted from Wikipedia, accessed January 5, 2012.
  2. ↑ Watts, Emily Stipes. The Poetry of American Women from 1632 to 1945. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1977: 123. ISBN 0-292-76540-2. Young, Bette Roth (1997). Emma Lazarus in Her World: Life and Letters. The Jewish Publication Society. ISBN 0-8276-0618-4. p. 3.
  3. ↑ Young, Bette Roth (1997). Emma Lazarus in Her World: Life and Letters. The Jewish Publication Society. ISBN 0-8276-0618-4. p. 3. See also: Fifty Jewish Women Who Changed the World by Deborah G. Felder and Diana L. Rosen. Citadel Press, 2003. ISBN = 0-8065-2443-X}} p. 45.
  4. ↑ Max I Baym, "Emma Lazarus and Emerson." Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society 38 (1948): 271-2.
  5. ↑ Heinrich E. Jacob. The World of Emma Lazarus. (New York: Schocken Books, 1949) 28, 70-1.
  6. ↑ Zeiger's dissertation is quoted in Young 18.
  7. ↑ Young, pages 44-45.
  8. ↑ Jewish Women's Archive: Emma Lazarus| url= http://jwa.org/exhibits/wov/lazarus/el2.html%7Caccessdate = 2008-01-10}}
  9. ↑ Exhibit highlights connection between Jewish poet, Catholic nun. url=http://www.the-tidings.com/2010/091710/exhibit.htm. Catholic News Service newspaper= The Tidings, published by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, 17 September 2010, page=16. Access date=20 September 2010.
  10. ↑ Esther Schor, Emma Lazarus (20060
  11. ↑ Yearning for Zion by Briana Simon (WZO Hagshama)
  12. ↑ http://www.mbpo.org/free_details.asp?ID=234
  13. ↑ url= http://books.google.com/books?id=iMm0AtPW32cC&dq=Emma+Lazarus&printsec=frontcover%7Caccessdate= 2008-12-12


External links


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