Emma Lazarus is most famous for writing one poem, ‘The New Colossus’, which adorns the

pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. Written in 1883, the poem helped to shape the popular idea of
the Statue of Liberty as a welcoming mother, and of America as the great nation of immigrants.

This view was helped by the fact that the Statue was the first great US landmark that immigrants
arriving in the United States would see.

Context

The arrival of the Statue of Liberty in the United States from France in 1886 was a huge national
occasion: it is thought to have inspired the very first ticker-tape parade. Lazarus’ poem didn’t
enjoy quite the same level of acclaim.

Indeed, it was hardly read during her lifetime. ‘The New Colossus’ was commissioned to help
raise money for the statue’s construction, but it was only after her death, in 1887, that the poem
was published.

But it would not be until 1945 that the poem would achieve widespread fame, when it was
inscribed over the entrance to the Statue of Liberty. Not only this, but France intended for the
Statue of Liberty to be propaganda, with the light-bearing female personification of Liberty –
that French Revolutionary watchword – symbolising a beacon of enlightenment for those
European countries still living under tyranny.

But Lazarus twisted this propagandistic intention, and her poem ensured that the Statue of
Liberty would instead be viewed as a beacon of welcome for immigrants leaving their European
mother countries, for the new ‘Mother of Exiles’.

Summary

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

As her title makes clear, the Statue of Liberty is a ‘new colossus’; Lazarus’ title contrasts this
modern statue with the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
According to a misconception popularised in the Middle Ages, the Colossus straddled the
harbour and thus, like the Statue of Liberty, was one of the first things to greet incoming
travellers.

In fact, the Colossus didn’t stand astride the harbour, but this myth helps Lazarus to contrast the
‘brazen’ male statue of the Greek Colossus (‘brazen’ carries a double meaning: the statue was
literally covered in brass plates, but it is also boldly standing astride the water like a conqueror)
with the more welcoming female Statue of Liberty.

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 …
This welcoming nature is also contained within the epithet for the statue, ‘Mother of Exiles’: this
new colossus will be a nurturing, caring figure, a beacon of support, for those who have been
exiled from their own countries elsewhere in the world. We’re a long way from the ‘conquering’
stance of the Greek Colossus.

Note how the Statue of Liberty is portrayed as feminine, but as powerful, too: it is no meek,
placid figure, but a ‘mighty woman’ carrying as much strength, one suspects, as the male
Colossus of ancient Greece. Similarly, the torch the woman holds aloft in her ‘beacon-hand’
carries not just a flamer but ‘imprisoned lightning’, conveying the white-hot power of the
enlightenment values the statue stands for.

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

The triple alliteration of ‘world-wide welcome’, with the repeated ‘w’ sounds, reflects the fact
that the statue – and, by extension, the United States as a whole – welcomes people from all over
the globe. Sure enough, immigrants from various countries did emigrate to the US in the
nineteenth century in the hope of making a better life for themselves and their families.

‘Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!’ cries she

With silent lips. ‘Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

The sestet, or six-line stanza which concludes the poem, gives the Statue of Liberty a voice,
imagining its ‘silent lips’ addressing the arriving immigrants and welcoming them to the land of
the free. Lazarus’ phrase ‘the huddled masses yearning to breathe free’ has become familiar to
those who haven’t read the poem, or even heard of it. The line is indelibly associated with the
Statue of Liberty itself.

The line underscores the fact that many people who were arriving in the US at the time were
fleeing persecution, war, or poverty (such as the Irish immigrants who were forced to move to
America in the wake of the Great Famine) and longed or ‘yearned’ to live their lives freely.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!’

These ‘homeless’ people who have fled their native countries or homelands are borne across the
stormy ‘tempest-tost’ (i.e., ‘tossed’) Atlantic in ships until they arrive at New York. The Statue
of Liberty raises her lamp in welcome. (And indeed, the Statue of Liberty is literally a
lighthouse, a beacon designed to help ships to find the harbour during night-time; recall the
mention of ‘sunset’ earlier on.)

The fact that the ‘door’ into the US is ‘golden’ recalls the ‘sunset’ image from earlier in the
poem, but also suggests the idea of America as a land of ‘golden’ opportunity, where people
could make their fortunes or at least free themselves from poverty and starvation.
Analysis

‘The New Colossus’ is a poem full of contrasts: images of land/sea, fire/water, light/dark,
freedom/imprisonment can be found within this short sonnet. But perhaps, as the poem’s title
points out, the most important contrast in Lazarus’ poem is between old and new, specifically the
old colossus and the new one, and, by extension, the Old World with the New World of America.

‘Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!’ cries the new colossus. The ancient lands of Europe
can keep their history; America, the new land of the free, offers a new start for anybody in search
of one. And the gender switch is significant: the ‘conquering’ male Colossus of Rhodes, which
was erected in order to strike fear into any invading army or fleet that thought it might try to take
on the might of the Greek empire, has been replaced by the female, motherly Statue of Liberty
which welcomes those coming to American shores in search of a better life.