Emma Lazarus

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Emma Lazarus

Emma Lazarus (born July 22, 1849 in New York City , † November 19, 1887 there ) was a Jewish American poet . She is best known for the 1883 poem The New Colossus , which is engraved on the pedestal of the New York Statue of Liberty .

Life

Emma Lazarus was the fourth of seven children of Esther and Moses Lazarus, Sephardic Jews . She was tutored by private tutors, including American and European literature, German, French and Italian. Supported by her father, she began to write poetry at a young age.

Her poems caught the attention of Ralph Waldo Emerson , then a leading American poet and essayist, with whom she corresponded until his death in 1882.

In addition to her own poems, Emma Lazarus wrote adaptations of Italian and German poems, namely by Goethe and Heine . She also wrote a short biography about Heine. Reading George Eliot's novel Daniel Deronda piqued her interest in contemporary Jewish events. The Russian pogroms of the early 1880s increased their interest. In her most productive time, Emma Lazarus began translating works by Jewish poets. She also dealt with Jewish topics in essays.

Emma Lazarus traveled to Europe twice, in 1883 and in May 1885, after her father's death in March. From the second trip she returned to New York in September 1887, seriously ill. Two months later she died, presumably of cancer.

Heinrich Eduard Jacob wrote the first comprehensive biography of Lazarus . The idea for this came to him in the summer of 1939 when he met the English painter William B. Parnes in London's “Bloombury House”, a meeting place for those who had fled from Hitler . He drew Jacob's attention to the verse in the New York Statue of Liberty and its author. In an interview with Peter M. Lindt for the German-language radio WEVD, New York, Jacob said on August 20, 1949: “Parnes had met her in London and had a crush on her as a young man. He was 18, she 35. He showed me his diaries from that time [...] and on this occasion he told me that I had to write a book about this woman one day. And I'm fulfilling his wish now for her 100th birthday. ”On June 23, 1949, the politician Jacob K. Javits (1904–1986) from New York gave a speech in front of the House of Representatives of the United States about Heinrich Eduard Jacob and his work“ The World of Emma Lazarus ”.

Works

  • Admetus and Other Poems (1875)
  • Alide: An Episode of Goethe's Life (1874)
  • Emma Lazarus. Selections from Her Poetry and Prose Edited by Morris Schappes (1944)
  • Poems and Ballads of Heinrich Heine (1881)
  • Poems and Translations. Written Between the Ages of Fourteen and Sixteen (1866)
  • The Poems of Emma Lazarus 2 vols. (1888)
  • Songs of a Semite: The Dance to Death and Other Poems (1882)
  • The Spagnoletto (1876)
  • Biographical Sketch of the life of Heinrich Heine , in: ders .: Poems & Ballads Hartsdale House, NY 1947 (1948) ("Biographical Introduction" by EL), again in revised by ed. Version in: Andrew Moore (ed.): H. Heine. The Rabbi of Bacharach Mondial, NY 2008 ISBN 1595691006 (Series: German Classics) Excerpt from it available in online book searches for this book (e.g. at Amazon.com)

literature

  • Jeffrey B. Berlin : Experience and testimony. Perspectives on the genesis of Heinrich Eduard Jacobs' biography 'The World of Emma Lazarus' . In: “Études Germaniques” 63 (2008) 4; Pp. 707-722. ISSN  0014-2115
  • Esther H. Schor: Emma Lazarus. A Biography Schocken, NY 2006, ISBN 0-8052-4216-3
  • Susanne Weyand: Literary cultural transfer Germany - USA through women around 1900: using the example of Edith Wharton , Emma Lazarus and Amalie von Ende (with documentation part) Logos, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-8325-0626-8
  • Monica Furlong (Hg): EL - Poet of the Jewish People Arthur James, Berkhamsted / Hertfordshire 1997, ISBN 0853053693 (series: Visionary Women) biography and approx. 50 poems or excerpts (English)
  • Lefer, Diane: Emma Lazarus Chelsea House, NY 1988
  • Levinson, Nancy Smiler: I Lift My Lamp. Emma Lazarus and the Statue of Liberty Dutton, NY 1986
  • Merriam, Eve: Emma Lazarus Rediscovered Biblio Press, NY 1998
  • Young, Bette Roth: Emma Lazarus in Her World. Life and Letters Jewish Publication Society, Philadelphia 1995
  • Lazarus, Emma , in: Encyclopaedia Judaica , 1972, Volume 10, Sp. 1516f.

radio play

  • Morton Wishengrad: Emma Lazarus . The radio play was broadcast on Sunday, November 13, 1949, from 12:30 pm to 1:00 pm, on the NBC Network, as part of the radio program "Eternal Light".

See also

Web links


personal data
SURNAME Lazarus, Emma
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American poet
DATE OF BIRTH July 22, 1849
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City
DATE OF DEATH November 19, 1887
Place of death New York City