The greatest American Jewish author of the nineteenth century, Emma Lazarus was a celebrated poet and humanitarian activist. This edition is a broad collection of her writings, including her essays, previously unpublished poems, her innovative late work, and, in its entirety, her most important book, Songs of a Semite (1882). Her best known poem, “The New Colossus” (the 1883 Statue of Liberty poem that made Lazarus a national icon), is also here, along with a selection of cultural documents that help contextualize her work in relation to contemporary debates about Jewish history, the Russian pogroms of the 1880s, the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine, immigration, and antisemitism.
Comments
“Gregory Eiselein has created an important historical-literary context for Emma Lazarus’s writing; this edition will be invaluable in making her work accessible to twenty-first century readers.” — Diane Lichtenstein, Beloit College
“Eiselein’s expertly edited and annotated volume is an invaluable contribution to the recovery of lost texts by women writers. With its well-researched notes, historical contextualization, and supplementary materials, this superb edition is certain to become the definitive edition of Lazarus’s works. An impressive achievement!.” — Denise D. Knight, State University of New York, Cortland
“This collection provides a rich introduction to this important and under-appreciated American author. It is necessary reading for any scholar of nineteenth-century American poetry, nineteenth-century American woman writers, or the history of Jewish-American writing.” — Marianne Noble, American University
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Emma Lazarus: A Brief Chronology
A Note on the Texts
From Poems and Translations
LONG ISLAND SOUND
From Admetus and Other Poems
- Epochs [I-VII, XVI]
In the Jewish Synagogue at Newport
Heroes
PHANTASIES
MOODS
TRANSLATIONS FROM THE FRENCH OF FRANÇOIS COPPÉE
ARABESQUE
THE CRANES OF IBYCUS
OFF ROUGH POINT
LEDA & THE SWAN
THE SOUTH
SYMPHONIC STUDIES
THE CREATION OF MAN
A LETTER, FROM JUDAH HALLEVI TO HIS FRIEND ISAAC CHOPIN
NIGHT-PIECE
DESTINY
THE TAMING OF THE FALCON
RASCHI IN PRAGUE
ASSURANCE
ECHOES
From Poems and Ballads of Heinrich Heine
- Morphine
Homeward Bound [LXV]
The Asra
Song
An Apparition in the Sea
Question
CITY VISIONS
PROGRESS AND POVERTY
LAURA’S DEATH
TRIUMPH OF LOVE
Songs of a Semite: The Dance to Death, and Other Poems The Dance to Death; A Historical Tragedy in Five Acts
- Songs
- The New Year
The Crowing of the Red Cock
In Exile
In Memoriam—Rev. JJ. Lyons
The Valley of Baca
The Banner of the Jew
The Guardian of the Red Disk
- A Translation of Heine and Two Imitations
- Donna Clara
Don Pedrillo
Fra Pedro
- Translations from the Hebrew Poets of Mediaeval Spain
-
Solomon ben Judah Gabirol
Night-Thoughts
Meditations
Hymn
To a Detractor
Fragment
Stanzas
Wine and Grief
Defiance
A Degenerate Age
- Judah ben Ha-Levi
- Love-Song
Separation
Longing for Jerusalem
On the Voyage to Jerusalem I
On the Voyage to Jerusalem II
To the West Wind III
- Moses ben Esra
- Extracts from the Book of Tarshish, or “Necklace
of Pearls”
In the Night
From the “Divan”
Love Song of Alcharisi
AN EPISTLE FROM JOSHUA IBNVIVES OF ALLORQUI
THE WORLD’S JUSTICE
THE FEAST OF LIGHTS
LIFE AND ART
THE NEW EZEKIEL
CONSOLATION
THE NEW COLOSSUS
1492
CRITIC AND POET
THE CHOICE
THE SUPREME SACRIFICE
THE BIRTH OF MAN
To R.WE.
BAR KOCHBA
THE VENUS OF THE LOUVRE
GIFTS
ADMONITION
BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON
A MASQUE OF VENICE
Selected Essays
-
Russian Christianity versus Modern Judaism
Emerson’s Personality
An Epistle to the Hebrews [V, XII]
The Jewish Problem
The Poet Heine
A Day in Surrey with William Morris
Appendix A: Biography
- Josephine Lazarus, “Emma Lazarus”
Appendix B: Selections from the Correspondence
- From Ralph Waldo Emerson, 14 April 1868
- To Ralph Waldo Emerson, 27 June 1868
- From Ralph Waldo Emerson, 19 Nov. 1868
- To Ralph Waldo Emerson, 22 Nov. 1868
- To Ralph Waldo Emerson, 27 Dec. 1874
- To Rabbi Gustav Gottheil, 25 Feb. [1877]
- John Burroughs, to Emma Lazarus, 29 Apr. 1878
- To Helena deKay Gilder, 18 Aug. 1879
- To Edmund Clarence Stedman, [Summer 1881]
- To Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, 14 Jan. 1882
- To Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, 23 Aug. 1882
- To Samuel Gray Ward, 12 Oct. 1882
- To Philip Cowen, 5 May [1883]
- To Helena deKay Gilder, 4 July 1883
- From James Russell Lowell, 17 Dec. 1883
- To Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, 29 Jan. [1884]
Appendix C: Critical Response · 320
- The New-York Times
- The Illustrated London News
- The New-York Times
- The Jewish Chronicle
- Pereira Mendes
- The American Hebrew
- The Literary World
- Solomon Solis-Cohen
- Edmund Clarence Stedman
Appendix D: Cultural Contexts
- Heinrich Graetz, from Geschichte der Juden [The History of the Jews]
- George Eliot, from Daniel Deronda
- From “The Persecution of the Jews in Russia,” The Times
- Mme. Z. Ragozin, from “Russian Jews and Gentiles. From a Russian Point of View”
- Samuel S. Cox, from the Congressional Record
- Abram S. Isaacs, “Will the Jews Return to Palestine?”
- Telemachus Thomas Timayenis, from The American Jew: An Exposé of His Career
Select Bibliography
Gregory Eiselein is a professor of English at Kansas State University. He is the author of
Literature and Humanitarian Reform in the Civil War Era (1996) and the editor of
Infelicia and Other Writings, by Adah Isaacs Menken (Broadview Press, 2002).
