1/6/2023 0 Comments Emma lazarusHer father, who was a successful sugar merchant, supported her writing financially as well as emotionally. She grew up in New York and Newport, Rhode Island, and was educated by private tutors with whom she studied mythology, music, American poetry, European literature, German, French, and Italian. Schor’s prose is as lyrical and rich in images as the poetry she describes in this intimate, often touching volume.“Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” proclaims the “Mother of Exiles” in Emma Lazarus’s sonnet “The New Colossus.” Her best-known contribution to mainstream American literature and culture, the poem has contributed to the belief that America means opportunity and freedom for Jews, as well as for other “huddled masses.” Through this celebration of the “other,” Lazarus conveyed her deepest loyalty to the best of both America and Judaism.īorn on July 22, 1849, Lazarus was the fourth of Esther (Nathan) and Moses Lazarus’s seven children. In describing Emma Lazarus and her circle, Schor tells the story of American Jewry in the nineteenth century, paints a portrait of literary New York in one of its heydays, explicates many beautiful and long-neglected poems, and instills in us a canny affection for a subject who is forceful and sometimes overbearing but also brilliant and compassionate. “It is a rare book indeed that so skillfully melds biography, literary analysis, and cultural history. –Harold Bloom, author of The Western Canon “Schor, herself a poet of authentic distinction, has composed a very moving and highly useful biographical critique of Emma Lazarus, a permanent poet in American and in Jewish tradition.” Sean Wilentz, author of The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln “In this luminous, enthralling biography, Schor recovers one of the outstanding women of nineteenth-century letters, who while inventing her life as an American Jewish writer discovered a larger poetic mission for the entire nation.” A work of great empathy an meticulous historical research.” “Schor brings to life the complicated, passionate woman who left us our proudest national image. How fine to have a writer of Schor’s quality restore this courageous and important poet to her rightful place.” “How welcome Lazarus would be in the company of today’s poets. “A sympathetic and balanced life of Emma Lazarus.” It is unlikely that, for a general audience, it will be surpassed any time in the near future.” “Emma Lazarus’s ‘passionate, ardent life’ is laid out sumptuously in Esther Schor’s evocative biography. 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. 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. Although she once referred to her family as “outlaw” Jews, she felt a deep attachment to Jewish history and peoplehood. 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. 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.ĭrawing upon a cache of personal letters undiscovered until the 1980s, Esther Schor brings this vital woman to life in all her complexity. 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.Įmma Lazarus’s most famous poem gave a voice to the Statue of Liberty, but her remarkable life has remained a mystery until now.
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