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LAZARUS, EMMA (1849–1887)
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See also:LAZARUS, EMMA (1849–1887) , See also:American Jewish poetess, was See also:born in New See also:York. When the See also:Civil See also:War See also:broke out she was soon inspired to lyric expression. Her first See also:book (1867) included poems and See also:translations which she wrote between the ages of fourteen and seventeen. As yet her See also:models were classic and romantic. At the See also:age of twenty-one she published See also:Admetus and other Poems (1871). Admetus is inscribed to See also:Emerson, who greatly influenced her, and with whom she maintained a See also:regular See also:correspondence for several years. She led a retired See also:life, and had a modest conception of her own See also:powers. Much of her next See also:work appeared in Lippincott's See also:Magazine, but in 1874 she published a See also:prose See also:romance (Abide) based on See also:Goethe's autobiography, and received a generous See also:letter of admiration from Turgeniev. Two years later she visited See also:Concord and made the acquaintance of the Emerson circle, and while there read the See also:proof-sheets of her tragedy The Spagnoletto. In 1881 she published her excellent translations of See also:Heine's poems. Meanwhile events were occurring which appealed to her Jewish sympathies and gave a new turn to her feeling. The See also:Russian massacres of 1880–1881 were a See also:trumpet-See also:call to her. So far her Judaism had been latent. She belonged to the See also:oldest Jewish See also:congregation of New York, but she had not for some years taken a See also:personal See also:part in the observances of the See also:synagogue. But from this See also:time she took up the cause of her See also:race, and " her See also:verse rang out as it had never See also:rung before, a clarion See also:note, calling a See also:people to heroic See also:action and unity; to the consciousness and fulfilment of a See also:grand destiny." Her poems, " The Crowing of the Red See also:Cock " and " The Banner of the See also:Jew " (1882) stirred the Jewish consciousness and helped to produce the new See also:Zionism (q.v.). She now wrote another See also:drama, the See also:Dance to See also:Death, the See also:scene of which is laid in See also:Nordhausen in the 14th See also:century; it is based on the See also:accusation brought against the See also:Jews of poisoning the See also:wells and thus causing the See also:Black Death. The Dance to Death was included (with some translations of See also:medieval See also:Hebrew poems) in Songs of a Semite (1882), which she dedicated to See also:George See also:Eliot. In 1885 she visited See also:Europe. She devoted much of the See also:short See also:remainder of her life to the cause of Jewish nationalism. In 1887 appeared By the See also:waters of See also:Babylon, which consists of a See also:series of " prose poems," full of prophetic See also:fire. She died in New York on the 19th of See also:November 1887. A See also:sonnet by Emma Lazarus is engraved on a memorial tablet on the See also:colossal Bartholdi statue of See also:Liberty, New York. See See also:article in the Century Magazine, New Series, xiv. 875 (portrait p. 803), afterwards prefixed as a Memoir to the collected edition of The poems of Emma Lazarus (2 vols., 1889). (I. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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