Emma Lazarus

Ranen Omer-Sherman (University of Louisville)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.2: American (US) Writing and Culture: The Nineteenth Century, 1783-1900.
Vol. editors: Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University)

Dates

Born 22 Jul 1849
Died 19 Nov 1887
Activity 1869-1887

Places

Born in United States
Active in United States

Activities

Primary

Novelist
Poet

Resources

There were years when it seemed that the Jewish poet Emma Lazarus, one of the most important early figures in the Jewish American literary canon, might emerge as a full-fledged participant into the elite realm of America’s Protestant literary culture. By the late 1870s and 1880s, Browning, Whitman, Henry James, Emerson (the latter two among her many ardent correspondents) and many others had all praised her translations of Heine as well as her own verse that appeared in Lippincott’s and the Century. But she was fated to be memorialized exclusively for “The New Colossus,” her great paean to (or plea for) American largesse, and by Jewish Americans for the few years of poetry, essays and political activity dedicated to their cause. …

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1974 words

Citation: Omer-Sherman, Ranen. "Emma Lazarus". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 27 August 2004 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2651, accessed 25 November 2024.]

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