page_title: Emma Lazarus
section_title: Style and themes
hierarchical_section_title: Emma Lazarus / Style and themes
caption_attribution_description: English: "Alide&#160;: an episode of Goethe's life" (1874), by Lazarus, Emma
context_page_description: Emma Lazarus was an American author of poetry, prose, and translations, as well as an activist for Jewish causes.
  She wrote the sonnet "The New Colossus" in 1883. Its lines appear inscribed on a bronze plaque, installed in 1903, on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. The last lines of the sonnet were set to music by Irving Berlin as the song "Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor" for the 1949 musical Miss Liberty, which was based on the sculpting of the Statue of Liberty. The latter part of the sonnet was also set by Lee Hoiby in his song "The Lady of the Harbor" written in 1985 as part of his song cycle "Three Women".
  Lazarus was also the author of Poems and Translations; Admetus, and other Poems; Alide: An Episode of Goethe's Life; Poems and Ballads of Heine; Poems, 2 Vols.; Narrative, Lyric and Dramatic; as well as Jewish Poems and Translations.
context_section_description: Lazarus contributed towards shaping the self-image of the United States as well as how the country understands the needs of those who emigrate to the United States. Her themes produced sensitivity and enduring lessons regarding immigrants and their need for dignity. What was needed to make her a poet of the people as well as one of literary merit was a great theme, the establishment of instant communication between some stirring reality and her still-hidden and irresolute subjectivity. Such a theme was provided by the immigration of Russian Jews to America, consequent upon the proscriptive May Laws of 1882. She rose to the defense of her ethnic compatriots in powerful articles, as contributions to The Century (May 1882 and February 1883). Hitherto, her life had held no Jewish inspiration. Though of Sephardic ancestry, and ostensibly Orthodox in belief, her family had till then not participated in the activities of the synagogue or of the Jewish community. Contact with the unfortunates from Russia led her to study the Bible, the Hebrew language, Judaism, and Jewish history. While her early poetry demonstrated no Jewish themes, her Songs of a Semite (1882) is considered to be the earliest volume of Jewish-American poetry.
  A review of Alide by Lippincott's Monthly Magazine was critical of Lazarus' style and elements of technique.
caption: Alide: an episode of Goethe's life (1874)
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