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Emma Lazarus

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Emma Lazarus

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American poet (1849–1887)

OverviewAI-generated

Emma Lazarus was an American poet and author. Her literary output includes works such as *Nate Lowman*, *One for Each Night*, *Poems of Emma Lazarus - Volume I*, *Poems of Emma Lazarus, Volume 1*, and *Poems and Ballads*. She is associated with a total of 28 works.

Lazarus was born on July 22, 1849, and died on November 19, 1887. Her writings include the lines, “I seem to have always one little window looking but into life,” and “Poetry must be simple, sensuous, or impassioned.” She also wrote, “Then Nature shaped a poet's heart — a lyreFrom out whose chords the lightest breeze that blowsDrew trembling music.”

Synthesized by Vinony from 16 facts across 7 sources: Wikidata, Last.fm, Crossref, MusicBrainz, Wikiquote, Open Library, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.

Person · Open Library

Works
28

Top works

  • Nate Lowman
  • One for Each Night
  • Poems of Emma Lazarus - Volume I
  • Poems of Emma Lazarus, Volume 1
  • Poems and Ballads

via Open Library + Wikidata

Music · MusicBrainz

Type
Person
Country
US

via MusicBrainz · CC0

Listeners · Last.fm

Listeners
25
Total plays
68

Emma Lazarus (July 22, 1849 – November 19, 1887) was an American poet born in New York City. She is best known for "The New Colossus", a sonnet written in 1883; its lines appear on a bronze plaque in the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty in 1912. The sonnet was solicited by William Maxwell Evarts as a donation to an auction, conducted by the "Art Loan Fund Exhibition in Aid of the Bartholdi Pedestal Fund for the Statue of Liberty" to raise funds to build the pedestal. <a href="https://www.last.f

via Last.fm · Emma Lazarus

Quotes

  • I seem to have always one little window looking but into life.
  • Poetry must be simple, sensuous, or impassioned.
  • Sweet empty sky of June without a stain,Faint, gray-blue dewy mists on far-off hillsWarm, yellow sunlight flooding mead and plain,That each dark copse and hollow overfills:
  • The children of the prophets of the Lord,Prince, priest, and people, spurned by zealot hate.Hounded from sea to sea, from state to state,The West refused them, and the East abhorred.No anchorage the known world could afford.
  • Then Nature shaped a poet's heart — a lyreFrom out whose chords the lightest breeze that blowsDrew trembling music.
  • No man had ever heard a nightingale,When once a keen-eyed naturalist was stirredTo study and define — what is a bird.

via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA

Key facts

Born
( 1849-07-22 ) July 22, 1849, New York City , New York, U.S.
Died
November 19, 1887 (1887-11-19) (aged 38), New York City
Resting place
Beth Olam Cemetery in Brooklyn , New York City
Occupation
Author, activist
Language
English
Genre
Poetry, prose, translations, novels, plays
Subject
Georgism
Notable works
The New Colossus
Notable awards
National Women's Hall of Fame
Relatives
Josephine Lazarus , Benjamin N. Cardozo

via Wikipedia infobox

~17 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Emma Lazarus (July 22, 1849 – November 19, 1887) was an American author of poetry, prose, and translations, as well as an activist for Jewish and Georgist causes. She is remembered for writing the sonnet "The New Colossus", which was inspired by the Statue of Liberty, in 1883. Its lines appear inscribed on a bronze plaque, installed in 1903, on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. Lazarus was involved in aiding refugees to New York who had fled antisemitic pogroms in eastern Europe, and she saw a way to express her empathy for these refugees in terms of the statue. 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 (Liberty Enlightening the World). 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 (New York, 1867); Admetus, and other Poems (1871); Alide: An Episode of Goethe's Life (Philadelphia, 1874); Poems and Ballads of Heine (New York, 1881); Poems, 2 Vols.; Narrative, Lyric and Dramatic; as well as Jewish Poems and Translations.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Emma Lazarus” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

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