Emma Lazarus: Poet of the Statue

Born to Moses and Esther Lazarus in 1849 in New York, Emma Lazarus published Poems and Translations Written Between the Ages of Fourteen and Seventeen, her first book of poems, at age seventeen. Her father arranged for her book's publication after having noticed his daughter's extraordinary gift as a poet and translator. Her sister Josephine also became a writer and appeared as a featured speaker at the 1893 Jewish Women's Congress.

Not shy about promoting herself, Emma sent Ralph Waldo Emerson a copy of her book. Emerson offered her comments and criticism, and Emma got the impression that he valued her work more than he did; she expected him to include some of her poems in his anthology Parnassus in 1874 but was disappointed to find that he had not. She wrote him a letter, scolding him for the omission, but apparently he did not respond to it. She continued to admire him and seek his guidance, but the friendship seemed to mean more to her than to him.

Emma's second book of poetry, Admetus and Other Poems, appeared in 1871 and met with approval of the critics. The Illustrated London News hailed her as "a poet of rare original power." The rest of the decade saw her publishing as many as fifty poems in widely read journals. Her best reviews came for her translations of Heinrich Heine in 1881, after she published Poems and Ballads of Heinrich Heine.

Emma died at thirty-eight leaving behind a rich legacy of poetry, translsation, and essays. She is recognized as the first noted Jewish writer in American literary history. She is also noted as a forerunner of the Zionist movement.

Emma Lazarus is probably most noted as the poet of the Statue of Liberty, sculpted by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi. France paid $400,000 for the statue, but the United State had to provide the pedestal which amounted to $270,000. Emma wrote the poem, "The New Colossus," in 1883 to help raise money to build the pedestal. In 1903 sixteen years after her death, the poem was engraved on a plaque and placed on the pedestal of the Statue.

Everyone has heard the lines, "Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." Here is entire sonnet:

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

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