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The New Colossus 1

Your name

by Emma Lazarus
UNITED STATES | 1883

Author
Emma Lazarus
born 22 July 1849
died 19 November 1887

Emma Lazarus, a writer and activist from a large Jewish family in New York City, wrote this
poem as a contribution to an auction that was held to raise money to construct a pedestal2
for the Statue of Liberty. “The New Colossus” was the first item read at the auction, but
it was forgotten soon after — even by the time the statue was dedicated just three years
later in 1886. Almost 15 years after Lazarus died, a friend, Georgina Schuyler, started a push
to memorialize her, and in 1903 a plaque with this poem was installed inside the Statue of
Liberty’s pedestal. “The New Colossus” has since come to be recognized as a powerful com-
mentary on the meaning and symbolism of the Statue of Liberty and on the importance of
immigrants in the American story.

1 Not like the brazen3 giant of Greek fame,1

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
5 Is the imprisoned lightning,4 and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged5 harbor that twin cities6 frame.

“Keep,7 ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

10 With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse8 of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless,9 tempest-tost10 to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
NOTES & COMMENTARY
“The New Colossus” is a Petrarchan sonnet,
a form of sonnet developed by poets during
the Renaissance. Petrarchan sonnets, like this
poem, have 14 lines, divided into an “octave”
of 8 lines and a “sestet” of 6 lines. The rhyming
pattern of “The New Colossus” also follows the
form of a typical Petrarchan sonnet:
ABBAABBA CDCDCD.
1 Colossus and “giant of Greek fame”: The
Colossus of Rhodes, one of the seven won-
ders of the ancient world. It was a statue of
the Greek sun god Helios that stood next
to — or by some accounts over (or “astride”,
as this poem states) — the entrance to the
harbor of the Greek city of Rhodes.
2 pedestal: The base on which a statue
stands. The pedestal of the Statue of
Liberty was designed by Richard Morris
Hunt, a well-known American architect at
the end of the 19th century. It is 27 meters
(89 feet) tall and constructed of granite
and concrete — at the time, the largest
concrete mass ever poured.
3 brazen: Made of brass, which is an alloy of
copper and zinc. Some ancient accounts
describe the Colossus of Rhodes as being
made of brass, while others stated it was
made of bronze, which is an alloy of copper
and tin. Modern researchers generally don’t
distinguish between “brass” and “bronze”,
preferring instead to use the term “copper
alloy” for both.
4 “imprisoned lightning”: This may be a
metaphorical reference to the electric light
that was used to illuminate the Statue
of Liberty’s torch at night, though David
Bromwich, a professor at Yale University,
suggests that there is deeper meaning be-
hind these words. He writes that they ref-
erence a line from the “Battle Hymn of the
Republic”, a song written about 20 years
earlier during the Civil War: “He [God] hath
loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible
Layout, introduction, and notes and commentary © 2019 Dustin Tyler Joyce. All rights reserved. | March 2019 | dtjoyce.com
Copies of this document may be made only by the original purchaser for use in a classroom or other educational setting.
This copyright notice should appear on all copies made. The text of “The New Colossus” is in the public domain.
Notes 4 and 8 reference David Bromwich, “Torchbearer: Emma Lazarus’ ‘The New Colossus’ is a greater symbol of freedom’s light than the Statue of Liberty,”
Tablet, 26 October 2011, tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/books/81464/torchbearer (accessed 8 March 2019).
The New Colossus
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swift sword.” Bromwich suggests that
“[t]hese reminiscences of the Battle Hymn
suggest a revolutionary memory at the
heart of a poem otherwise extraordinarily
sure of its peaceable intent.”
5 “air-bridged”: This may be a reference to
the Brooklyn Bridge, which was completed
the year Lazarus wrote this poem. At the
time it was the largest bridge ever con-
structed and connected the cities of New
York and Brooklyn.
6 “twin cities”: The cities of New York and
Brooklyn. In 1898, 15 years after Lazarus
wrote this poem, the two cities merged
to create modern-day New York City with
five boroughs. What was called New York
in Lazarus’s time is now the New York City
borough of Manhattan; Brooklyn is another
of the five boroughs.
7 This comma was erroneously omitted from
the plaque installed in the base of the
Statue of Liberty.
8 refuse: As a noun, refuse typically means
trash, rubbish, or detritus. But Bromwich
suggests that Lazarus’s other poetry — par-
ticularly her sonnet “1492”, about the expul-
sion of Jews from Spain — offers another
meaning for “refuse” in this context: people
who have been refused entry into other
countries.
9 homeless: In this context homeless, beyond
its usual meaning of those without a physi-
cal dwelling in which to live, could be ex-
panded to mean those without a country.
10 “tempest-tost”: Tossed (“tost”) or thrown
about by storms. In this context it could
refer to literal storms immigrants faced as
they traveled across the ocean on ships
to the United States, though it could
also allude to war, violence, persecution,
economic strife, famine, or other hardships
immigrants faced in their home countries.