![]() I’m not sure why she never married, but she had enough wealth to keep that from being a necessity. And she certainly thought that women belonged in the public sphere. She respected herself and was respected, not only within the family but outside the family. Her father published a book of her poems when she was 17. She was taught to respect herself and her gifts from a young age. It was unusual at that time for a woman to be an accomplished writer and a public figure. ![]() She was also one of the pre-eminent translators of Heinrich Heine, the German Jewish poet. She was a great reader of the literature of her day and she responded, sometimes in very surprising ways. She wrote literary criticism and theater criticism, as well as some more philosophical and contemplative essays. She wrote dramatic monologues, plays and a novel on the life of Goethe. The letters give us a person who is so vibrant and so smart and so unendingly curious about history, religion and literature. She was unashamed about writing fan letters and networking. She met a lot of the major American literary and cultural figures, and she was very well connected, partly because of her wealth, partly because she was very good at picking up mentors. First of all, she knew everybody in the 38 years that she lived. Yes, I read her letters and they were amazing. ![]() Were you inspired to write about Lazarus by reading those letters? Much was unknown about Lazarus until a trove of her letters was discovered by author Bette Roth Young in 1980 and published in a collection in 1995. Schor recently discussed Lazarus’ most famous poem, her role as a pioneering woman and her championing of the Zionist cause. “I had to confine myself to discussing the poems only where they illuminated her life, which was not always easy for me.” “I’m a literary critic, so it was a challenge to write a biographical narrative about a poet’s life,” Schor said. Her previous books include “Bearing the Dead: The British Culture of Mourning From the Enlightenment to Victoria,” “The Cambridge Companion to Mary Shelley” and a volume of poems, “The Hills of Holland.” This book represents a bit of a departure for Schor, a Princeton faculty member since 1986 who specializes in British Romanticism. Statue’s pedestal in 1903, where they have served as an anthem forĪmerica as a refuge for those who long for freedom. Lazarus’ words were finally given a place on the Lazarus already was ill by 1886, and died a year later Was finally installed in New York Harbor and dedicated, the poem hadīeen forgotten. “The New Colossus,” her most famous poem, was written to raise fundsįor a pedestal for the Statue of Liberty. Her outspokenness on topics sensitive to many American Jews, such asĪnti-Semitism and the place of Jewish law in American Jewish lives,Įarned her harsh criticism from many parties, but she refused to be With Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry James, wrote a weekly column for theĪmerican Hebrew, and penned plays, essays, translations and a novel. Was a member of the city’s elite literary circles. These categories even existed,” according to the book.īorn in 1849 to a wealthy Jewish family in New York City, Lazarus Zionist and an internationally famous Jewish American writer before ![]() Time that we are still scrambling to catch up with her - a feminist, a Pursuing a career as a poet and a critic and by speaking her mind onĪll kinds of hot-button issues. Portrait of a complex woman who defied the female roles of her time by Schor plumbed Lazarus’ letters, poems and other writings to create a Question in a new biography titled “Emma Lazarus,” published by Professor of English at Princeton and a poet, set out to answer that But who is the woman who wrote them? Esther Schor, a Of the Statue of Liberty, have been immortalized in America’sĬonsciousness. These words, from a sonnet engraved on a plaque inside the pedestal “Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. Nearly all of them are familiar with her most famous piece of writing, Many Americans don’t recognize Emma Lazarus’ name, but
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