Synopses & Reviews
Part of the Jewish Encounter seriesEmma Lazarus’s most famous poem gave a voice to the Statue of Liberty, but her remarkable life has remained a mystery until now. She was a woman so far ahead of her time that we are still scrambling to catch up with her–a feminist, a Zionist, and an internationally famous Jewish American writer before thse categories even existed.
Drawing upon a cache of personal letters undiscovered until the 1980, Esther Schor brings this vital woman to life in all her complexity. Born into a wealthy Sephardic family in 1849, Lazarus published her first volume of verse at seventeen and gained entrée into New York’s elite literary circles. Although she once referred to her family as “outlaw” Jews, she felt a deep attachment to Jewish history and peoplehood. Her compassion for the downtrodden Jews of Eastern Europe–refugees whose lives had little in common with her own–helped redefine the meaning of America itself.
In this groundbreaking biography, Schor argues persuasively for Lazarus’s place in history as a poet, an activist, and a prophet of the world we all inhabit today–a world that she helped to invent.
Synopsis
Emma Lazaruss most famous poem gave a voice to the Statue of Liberty, but her remarkable life has remained a mystery until now. She was a woman so far ahead of her time that we are still scrambling to catch up with her-a feminist, a Zionist, and an internationally famous Jewish American writer before thse categories even existed.
Drawing upon a cache of personal letters undiscovered until the 1980, Esther Schor brings this vital woman to life in all her complexity. Born into a wealthy Sephardic family in 1849, Lazarus published her first volume of verse at seventeen and gained entrée into New Yorks elite literary circles. Although she once referred to her family as “outlaw” Jews, she felt a deep attachment to Jewish history and peoplehood. Her compassion for the downtrodden Jews of Eastern Europe-refugees whose lives had little in common with her own-helped redefine the meaning of America itself.
In this groundbreaking biography, Schor argues persuasively for Lazaruss place in history as a poet, an activist, and a prophet of the world we all inhabit today-a world that she helped to invent.
Synopsis
Winner of the National Jewish Book Award
The definitive biography of the poet whose sonnet "The New Colossus" appears on the base of the Statue of Liberty, welcoming immigrants to their new home.
Emma Lazarus's most famous poem gave a voice to the Statue of Liberty, but her remarkable life has remained a mystery until now. She was a woman so far ahead of her time that we are still scrambling to catch up with her--a feminist, a Zionist, and an internationally famous Jewish American writer before these categories even existed.
Drawing upon a cache of personal letters undiscovered until the 1980s, Esther Schor brings this vital woman to life in all her complexity. Born into a wealthy Sephardic family in 1849, Lazarus published her first volume of verse at seventeen and gained entree into New York's elite literary circles. Although she once referred to her family as "outlaw" Jews, she felt a deep attachment to Jewish history and peoplehood. Her compassion for the downtrodden Jews of Eastern Europe--refugees whose lives had little in common with her own--helped redefine the meaning of America itself.
In this groundbreaking biography, Schor argues persuasively for Lazarus's place in history as a poet, an activist, and a prophet of the world we all inhabit today-a world that she helped to invent.
Jewish Encounters Series
About the Author
Esther Schor, a poet and professor of English at Princeton University, is the author of The Hills of Holland: Poems and Bearing the Dead: The British Culture of Mourning from the Enlightenment to Victoria. Her essays and reviews have appeared in The Times Literary Supplement, The New York Times Book Review, and the Forward. She lives in Princeton, New Jersey.
Table of Contents
Prologue: Emma Lazarus and the Three Anne Franks I · 1849-1876
Generations
The Shadow of Victory
Footsteps in Newport
Your Professor, My Poet
Admetus
Oldport
A Place in Parnassus
Thoreaus Compass
I I · 1876-1881
In the Studio
The Woman as She Really Was
Conundrums
Awakening
An Ancient, Well-Remembered Pain
The Critics Only Duty
The Devil Discovered
Fresh Vitality in Every Direction
Progress and Poverty
I I I · 1882-1883
Russian Jewish Horrors
Shylocks and Spinozas
The List of Singers
A Single Thought & a Single Work
An Army of Jewish Paupers
The Semite and the Hebrews
The Poet of the Podolian Ghetto
Seeds Sown
IV · 1883-1887
The Other Half (as It Were) of Our Little World-Ball
Mother of Exiles
Revolution as the Only Hope
The Inward Dissonance
The Vacant Chair
Passing Phantoms
December Roses
The Mattress-Grave
Sibyl Judaica
But If She Herself Were Here Today . . .
Appendix: Texts of the Poems
Chronology
Notes
Sources
Acknowledgments
Index