This post is about the poem The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus. The poem is most famous for appearing on the pedestal on which the Statue of Liberty sits. From that pedestal inscription, people often quote the following lines:
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free'
Emma Lazarus (1849 -187) was an author, poet and translator (Italian to English). She also campaigned for better educational and employment rights for Jewish people, especially Russian Jews who had gone to America after fleeing pogroms.
She wrote The New Colossus, for which she is best known, in 1883. She donated the poem to an auction that was held in order to raise funds for the pedestal on which the Statue of Liberty was to stand.
The statue, or rather the lady it represents, is the subject of the poem and the persona that declares those famous and noble lines: '"Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free"' (more of that later).
Lazarus wrote the poem in the style of a Petrarchan sonnet, a form that inspired numerous writers in the renaissance and beyond and one that harkens back to the 14th century Italian humanist Francesco Petrarca. Petrarca didn't devise the form himself exactly but it is named after him. He did write some 366 love sonnets, so he probably deserves acclaim.
A Petrarchan sonnet consists of 14 lines. These can be neatly divided into a set of 8, followed by a set of 6. The initial 8 lines, or octave, sets out the conflict or topic raised by the poem. The final 6 lines, or setset, resolves the conflict or provides a commentary on the topic.
In the case of Lazarus' poem, The New Colossus, the octave describes the character of the Statue of Liberty. The setset then gives voice to her welcoming declarations.
The colossus of the title, which is explicitly referred to in the first two lines, alludes to one of the seven wonders of the ancient world: The Colossus of Rhodes, which depicted the Greek sun god Helios.
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| A depiction of the Colossus of Rhodes, clearly extremely true to life. The original was apparently two-thirds of the height of the Statue of Liberty. |
Lazarus' statue, or Mother of Exiles, is set in contrast to the sculpture of Helios. Whereas the sun god is represented as standing in Rhodes with 'conquering limbs astride from land to land' [across the harbour], the American figure, said to be Libertas, is a 'mighty woman with a torch', who offers 'world-wide welcome'.
Personally I'm particularly fond of the following lines: 'her mild eyes command/The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.'. The twin cities are New York and Brooklyn, unincorporated then, whereas the air-bridges have nothing to do with post-Covid travel arrangements and everything to do with the architecture within New York Harbour.
When the statue was designed, by French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, it was intended to represent a goddess of liberty. The final 6 lines/setset of the poem do, however, solidify Lazarus' declaration of the statue's meaning for immigrants.
She refers to the poor and hungry and those 'yearning to breathe free' [especially poignant in light of her concern about Jewish persecution in Europe], and in the persona of the statue, Lazarus says: 'Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me'.
The poem has been interpreted in diverse ways over the intervening near century and a half since it was written. To me it spells out an ideal and beautiful sentiment: refugees should be welcome and liberty should reign. That is enough interpolation from me, though: instead, here's the full text of the poem:
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
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