With the words of the title of this review, Esther Schor introduces the reader to Emma Lazarus (1849 -1887)in her newly-published biography of this late-nineteenth Century American poet, essayist, novelist, critic, and social activist for newly-arrived immigrants. Schor is Professor of English at Princeton University, a poet in her own right, and the editor of the Cambridge Companion to Mary Shelley. Her biography of Emma Lazarus is part of a series of books called "Jewish Encounters" edited by Jonathan Rosen and "devoted to the promotion of Jewish literature, culture, and ideas."
Emma Lazarus is known to most readers only as the author of the sonnet "The New Colossus" which ultimately achieved iconic status with its inscription on the Statue of Liberty. But there is much more to Emma Lazarus than this great poem, as Schor convincingly demonstrates.Schor writes in an accessible, colloquial style that shows great affection and understanding for Lazarus. Although Schor's book includes a substantial amount of analysis of Lazarus's literary work, the focus of the book lies in bringing Emma Lazarus herself to life. Schor's biography, while not constituting the last word on Emma Lazarus, fulfills its goal of showing why Lazarus is worth knowing. Even with this book, and other studies of Emma Lazarus, she remains a complex and elusive figure.
Lazarus was born to an assimilated family of wealthy New York Jews who had lived in the United States for at least four generations. Lazarus received an outstanding private education and became known as a prodigy when her first volume of poems, written between the ages of 14 and 16 was published by her father. As a young woman, Emma Lazarus attracted the attention of Ralph Waldo Emerson and had a complicated relationship with him, as Schor discusses at length. Lazarus visited Emerson in Concord twice near the end of his life and became friends with his daughter Ellen. Lazarus was a highly connected woman with friends, male and female, among the most culturally and politically influential people in the United States.
Lazarus made impressive contributions to poetry besides "The New Colossus" and wrote influential essays and reviews as well. Her best work, such as "The New Colossus" deals with her vision of America and with the place of Judaism in the United States. In fact her work tends to fuse together these two subects. As Schor suggests, Emma Lazarus became the first of what would become a long series of Jewish-American writers who would try to express what they deemed to be the ideals of Judaism in secular and literary rather than in traditionally religious terms. Schor argues that Lazarus's work shows an interpenetration of American and Jewish ideals, with America providing freedom, liberty, and economic and cultural opportunity, while Jewish ideals expanded upon concepts of social justice and ethics within the American framework.
Schor argues that there was a Jewish undercurrent to Lazarus's works from its earliest stages, beginning with her poem "In the Jewish Synagogue at Newport." Lazarus translated Heine and medieval Jewish poets, and, in 1881 published a volume of poetry titled "Songs of a Semite" which expanded upon Jewish themes. She wrote influential essays which exposed anti-semitism and the Russian Pogroms and considered the meaning of Judaism in American. She worked actively for the well-being of Jewish immigrants to the United States and was among the first to champion the idea of a homeland for Jews in what was then Palestine to escape the ravages of European anti-semitism.
Lazarus remained secular throughout her life, and her own religious convictions can, I think best be described as a sort of nebulous theism. She described herself as an "outsider" to both Judaism and Christianity and, as Schor points out, anticipated the choices and the ambiguities that many American Jews struggle with today in considering their own relationship to Judaism. The complexities of Lazarus's views of Judaism are well-illustrated in a poem she wrote late in her life, "By the Waters of Babylon", the first prose-poem to be written in English. Schor gives a good analysis of this poem, and of many others.
As Schor emphasizes, Lazarus was a paradoxical figure in that she never lost her aristocratic, bearing as a member of America's privileged class and yet worked tirelessly for the health, education and culture of the new immigrants and, with her poem on the Statue of Liberty, redefined the meaning of this national symbol before it was even constructed. For all her activism, Lazarus never quite lost her basic conservatism -- a paradoxical combination that I continue to find fascinating. Emma Lazarus also remains difficult as a person, behind the ambiguities of her friendships with men and women and her Victorian reserve. Lazarus never married. She wrote, but did not publish, a remarkably suggestive sonnet, titled "Assurance" which for many readers, offers insight into Lazarus's own sexuality.
Emma Lazarus has been an inspiration to me for her vision of the United States and for her commitment to an ethical, active Judaism with a deeply secular cast. Schor's book will introduce the reader to an American writer who deserves increased recognition. Schor's book also includes an excellent sampling of Lazarus's poetry. Readers who would like to read more of Emma Lazarus may be interested in the selection of her poetry titled "Emma Lazarus" edited by John Hollander in the American Poets Project series of the Library of America.
Robin Friedman
