The New

Colossus
BY EMMA LAZARUS
 Emma
Lazarus
Born into a large and wealthy Sephardic family, on
July 22, 1849, Emma Lazarus was raised in
privilege, dividing much of her childhood between
a stately brownstone not far from Union Square in
New York City and a summer house in elegant
Newport, Rhode Island. The Lazarus family could
trace its line back as far as the American
Revolution, with perhaps even a connection to the
original Spanish and Portuguese Jews who first
settled in New Amsterdam in 1654, a mark of
distinction that placed them among the elite of
Emma’s father, Moses, was a successful sugar
refiner, who moved beyond the close-knit
Sephardic community, into the ranks of the
“upper ten thousand,” the New York upper class
(Schor 8). Moses and his wife Esther provided
their children with a classical, Victorian education
appropriate to their social standing and in line
with their desire to travel not only within Jewish
circles but in the gentile world as well.
Although they belonged to a synagogue, the Lazarus
family might have been deemed high holiday Jews,
seldom attending shul except on Rosh Hashanah
and Yom Kippur. Given her family’s apolitical,
assimilationist views, it’s remarkable that Emma
Lazarus eventually became a proto-Zionist and an
outspoken defender of persecuted, Eastern
European Jewry.
Trained in French, German, and Italian, the young
Emma Lazarus was a passionate reader and a
prolific writer, whose poems were inspired often by
current events, including the Civil War and the
assassination of Abraham Lincoln. By the time she
turned seventeen, in1866, Lazarus had amassed
such a body of work that her proud father published
a collection of her poetry, Poems and Translations
Between the Ages of Fourteen and Sixteen. A short
time later, the book was rereleased as Poems and
Translations Between the Ages of Fourteen and
Poems and Translations served as Lazarus’ calling
card when she met the Transcendentalist writer
Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1868. Although Emerson
was nearly 50 years Lazarus’ senior, the two writers
struck up a lively, sometimes heated
correspondence that lasted almost 15 years, until
Emerson’s death in 1882.
Poems and Translations served as Lazarus’ calling
card when she met the Transcendentalist writer
Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1868. Although Emerson
was nearly 50 years Lazarus’ senior, the two writers
struck up a lively, sometimes heated
correspondence that lasted almost 15 years, until
Emerson’s death in 1882.
Despite her omission from the anthology or perhaps
to spite her mentor Lazarus dedicated her second
poetry collection, Admetus and Other Poems, to her
friend, Ralph Waldo Emerson.
During her first trip to Europe in 1883, Lazarus met
with influential thinkers such as William Morris and
Robert Browning. That same year, she wrote a poem
for a fundraising event, an auction to generate
money for the pedestal that would support an
enormous gift from the French government: the
Statue of Liberty. Lazarus’ most famous text, “The
New Colossus,” only became a physical part of the
Statue in 1903, 16 years after the poet’s death,
when the sonnet was engraved on a bronze plaque
and hung inside the Statue’s pedestal.
In the final four years of her life, Emma Lazarus
continued to publish in literary journals. She
remained unmarried; without textual evidence, it is
difficult to know whether her sexuality was the
cause of this singleness or whether, like so many
women, Lazarus believed that a prominent role in
the public sphere prevented her from exploring
more traditional roles in the private sphere.
By the time her father died in 1885, the writer was
already beginning to show signs of illness, what we
now know to have been Hodgkin’s lymphoma. She
traveled to Europe, visiting England, the
Netherlands, France, and Italy. By 1887, now very
sick, Lazarus returned to the United States and died
at her home in New York, on November 19. She was
only 38-years-old.
Today, Emma Lazarus is mostly remembered and
read for one poem, “The New Colossus.” Feminist
critics view her as a founding Mother of Jewish
American literature
The New
Colossus
BY EMMA LAZARUS
1. “I bought a brazen ring as a golden
remembrance.”
2. “The bridge astride from port to port.”
3. “They have been freed at last – as the exiles of
Egypt!”
4. “She was awarded for being a beacon of light for
students.”
5. “I will cross every ocean – just to see you in the
harbor.”
6. “The brazen ring is an storied remembrance of a
once happy couple.”
7. “Children were watching the parade and they’re
a) a part of the ocean, a lake, etc. that is next to land and
that is protected and deep enough to provide safety for
ships / a place of safety and comfort
b) overwhelming/overflowing/abounding
c) extending over or across
d) people who are forced to live in a foreign country
e) someone or something (such as a country) that guides or
gives hope to others
f) made of brassdecorated with designs representing scenes
from story or history
g) the impressive decorations, music, clothing, etc., that are
part of formal events
 1. “I bought a brazen ring as a golden remembrance.”

a) a part of the ocean, a lake, etc. that is next to land and that is
protected and deep enough to provide safety for ships / a
place of safety and comfort
b) overwhelming/overflowing/abounding
c) extending over or across
d) people who are forced to live in a foreign country
e) someone or something (such as a country) that guides or gives
hope to others
f) made of brass decorated with designs representing scenes
from story or history
g) the impressive decorations, music, clothing, etc., that are part
of formal events
 2. “The bridge astride from port to port.”

a) a part of the ocean, a lake, etc. that is next to land and that is
protected and deep enough to provide safety for ships / a
place of safety and comfort
b) overwhelming/overflowing/abounding
c) extending over or across
d) people who are forced to live in a foreign country
e) someone or something (such as a country) that guides or gives
hope to others
f) made of brassdecorated with designs representing scenes
from story or history
g) the impressive decorations, music, clothing, etc., that are part
of formal events
 3. “They have been freed at last – as the exiles of
Egypt!”
a) a part of the ocean, a lake, etc. that is next to land and that is
protected and deep enough to provide safety for ships / a
place of safety and comfort
b) overwhelming/overflowing/abounding
c) extending over or across
d) people who are forced to live in a foreign country
e) someone or something (such as a country) that guides or gives
hope to others
f) made of brassdecorated with designs representing scenes
from story or history
g) the impressive decorations, music, clothing, etc., that are part
of formal events
 4. “She was awarded for being a beacon of light for
students.”
a) a part of the ocean, a lake, etc. that is next to land and that is
protected and deep enough to provide safety for ships / a
place of safety and comfort
b) overwhelming/overflowing/abounding
c) extending over or across
d) people who are forced to live in a foreign country
e) someone or something (such as a country) that guides or gives
hope to others
f) made of brassdecorated with designs representing scenes
from story or history
g) the impressive decorations, music, clothing, etc., that are part
of formal events
 5. “I will cross every ocean – just to see you in the
harbor.”
a) a part of the ocean, a lake, etc. that is next to land and that is
protected and deep enough to provide safety for ships / a
place of safety and comfort
b) overwhelming/overflowing/abounding
c) extending over or across
d) people who are forced to live in a foreign country
e) someone or something (such as a country) that guides or gives
hope to others
f) made of brassdecorated with designs representing scenes
from story or history
g) the impressive decorations, music, clothing, etc., that are part
of formal events
 6. “The brazen ring is an storied remembrance of a
once happy couple.”
a) a part of the ocean, a lake, etc. that is next to land and that is
protected and deep enough to provide safety for ships / a
place of safety and comfort
b) overwhelming/overflowing/abounding
c) extending over or across
d) people who are forced to live in a foreign country
e) someone or something (such as a country) that guides or gives
hope to others
f) made of brassdecorated with designs representing scenes
from story or history
g) the impressive decorations, music, clothing, etc., that are part
of formal events
7. “Children were watching the parade and they’re amazed
with the pomp it offers them.”

a) a part of the ocean, a lake, etc. that is next to land and that is
protected and deep enough to provide safety for ships / a
place of safety and comfort
b) overwhelming/overflowing/abounding
c) extending over or across
d) people who are forced to live in a foreign country
e) someone or something (such as a country) that guides or gives
hope to others
f) made of brassdecorated with designs representing scenes
from story or history
g) the impressive decorations, music, clothing, etc., that are part
8. “He claims a year teeming with blessings.”

a) a part of the ocean, a lake, etc. that is next to land and that is
protected and deep enough to provide safety for ships / a
place of safety and comfort
b) overwhelming/overflowing/abounding
c) extending over or across
d) people who are forced to live in a foreign country
e) someone or something (such as a country) that guides or gives
hope to others
f) made of brassdecorated with designs representing scenes
from story or history
g) the impressive decorations, music, clothing, etc., that are part
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to
land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall
stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes
command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries
she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,