Speaker 1: Hey listeners, we have got some live shows coming up. Sunday,
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Speaker 1: in History dot com slash Tour. Welcome to stuph you
Speaker 1: missed in History class from how Stuff Works dot com. Hello,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly Fry and I'm
Speaker 1: Tracy V. Wilson uh and today we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about Emma Lazarus, who became one of the United States
Speaker 1: first successful Jewish American writers, moving in the New York
Speaker 1: literary scene in the late eighteen hundreds, and she also
Speaker 1: wrote one of the most famous poems of all time.
Speaker 1: Even if you don't know her name or the title
Speaker 1: of that poem, odds are that at least you know
Speaker 1: some lines of that work. Heads up for our listeners
Speaker 1: who are maybe sharing this episode with younger history buffs.
Speaker 1: We are going to have a discussion at the end
Speaker 1: about one of her poems that is definitely erotic and
Speaker 1: calls into questions some theories about her sexuality. The poem
Speaker 1: in particular is adult content. I would say, yeah, I
Speaker 1: read it this morning and then I needed to take
Speaker 1: a walk. So we're gonna jump right in to the
Speaker 1: life of Emma Lazarus. She was born on July twenty two,
Speaker 1: eighteen forty nine, and her parents, Moses and Esther Lazarus,
Speaker 1: had seven children. She was born right in the middle.
Speaker 1: She was their fourth. They lived in New York City
Speaker 1: and Emma's family, which had Portuguese Jewish roots, was pretty wealthy.
Speaker 1: The family business was a sugar refinery and they had
Speaker 1: done extremely well for themselves. The family had been in
Speaker 1: New York since before the Revolutionary War, so that money
Speaker 1: that had been passed down through the family was rooted
Speaker 1: originally in a sugar trade that was directly tied to slavery.
Speaker 1: And the success that Moses acquired through the family business
Speaker 1: put him in high society circles that consisted primarily of
Speaker 1: white Christians, and he made something of a conscious effort
Speaker 1: to play down the family's Sephardic Jewish background as part
Speaker 1: of their assimilation into that social circle. He was moving
Speaker 1: towards more of a secular Judaism himself. But this whole
Speaker 1: situation really always gave Emma a sense of otherness. Even
Speaker 1: though she had friends, she just always felt apart from
Speaker 1: kind of everyone. Her early life was split between homes
Speaker 1: in New York City and Newport, Rhode Island. She studied
Speaker 1: with private tutors and received a really wide ranging education.
Speaker 1: She learned to speak French, Italian, and German, and these
Speaker 1: multi lingual skills really served her well in her career.
Speaker 1: Her translations were as popular as the poetry and prose
Speaker 1: that she was writing, and she was translating uh poetry
Speaker 1: from foreign languages from a very early age in In
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty six, her poetry was published for the first
Speaker 1: time in a volume titled Poems and Translations written between
Speaker 1: the ages of fourteen and seventeen, and this book was
Speaker 1: financed not by a publishing house but by her father, Moses,
Speaker 1: who was incredibly supportive of her work as a writer.
Speaker 1: But in eighteen sixty seven a publishing house printed a
Speaker 1: second edition of the book, which gave it a much
Speaker 1: wider distribution. Soon, Emma Lazarus was a name that was
Speaker 1: circulating in literary circles, and her poe aetry was getting
Speaker 1: the attention of people like Ralph Waldo Emerson. He became
Speaker 1: her mentor after the two of them were introduced by
Speaker 1: mutual friends. When Emma published a book of poetry called
Speaker 1: ad Medicine Other Poems in eighteen seventy one, the title
Speaker 1: poem was dedicated to Emerson. That relationship between Emerson, who
Speaker 1: was sixty five when he met eighteen year old Lazarus,
Speaker 1: wasn't always a smooth one. Initially, Emerson had seemed even
Speaker 1: a little flirtatious in his letters with the young poet,
Speaker 1: and while he praised her work generally, he gave very
Speaker 1: few specific notes and then he also cooled in his
Speaker 1: affinity for her and kind of withdrew. This is something
Speaker 1: that if you look at Emerson's life, this was a
Speaker 1: pattern of him with younger poets that he chose to
Speaker 1: mentor he would kind of lavish praise on them and
Speaker 1: then kind of back off of it. And then when
Speaker 1: she asked him to recommend a poem of hers to
Speaker 1: his editor I believe it was at the Atlantic for publication,
Speaker 1: he instead leveled some pretty harsh criticism at the work
Speaker 1: and told her that she had a tendency to indulge
Speaker 1: in quote feeble words. The two of them had a
Speaker 1: deeper falling out when Emerson edited the anthology Parnassis This
Speaker 1: is a collection of his favorite poems, and he left
Speaker 1: Emma's work out of it entirely. She wrote him a
Speaker 1: really angry letter about this slight and he never wrote
Speaker 1: her back about it. Eventually the two of them did
Speaker 1: see each other again. Was a couple of years later,
Speaker 1: after Emerson had retired. Lazarus visited him and conquered Massachusetts
Speaker 1: in eighteen seventy six at his invitation. Yes, so they
Speaker 1: seem to have smoothed it over at least a little
Speaker 1: but we don't really know that they ever got to
Speaker 1: the point of friendship they had once shared. Lazarus published
Speaker 1: more than fifty original poems in her lifetime, as well
Speaker 1: as volumes of translations. In eighteen seventy one, she published
Speaker 1: her second book of poetry that Tracy mentioned earlier, which
Speaker 1: was Admetus and Other Poems, and in it our translations
Speaker 1: of poems by Gerta and Heinrich Heine as well as
Speaker 1: original works by Lazarus. And her poem how Long, conveys
Speaker 1: the sense that Lazarus longs for literary tradition that makes
Speaker 1: sense of her own life as an American writer, and
Speaker 1: not one that's defined by the European tradition. The final
Speaker 1: stanza of that work reads, the echo faints and fails.
Speaker 1: It suiteth not upon this Western plane our voice or spirit.
Speaker 1: We should stir again the wilderness and make the plane
Speaker 1: resound unto a yet unheard of strain. Another poem in
Speaker 1: Admetus is in the Jewish Synagogue at Newport, which is
Speaker 1: a take on Longfellows the Jewish Cemetery at Newport. This
Speaker 1: poem touches on the many moments that take place and
Speaker 1: a synagogue so there's worship and weddings and funerals, and
Speaker 1: it's her first poetic effort at really trying to capture
Speaker 1: Jewish life. In eighteen seventy four, she published a novel,
Speaker 1: a Lead, an Episode in Guerta's Life. This is the
Speaker 1: only novel that she ever wrote, and it is based
Speaker 1: on Guerta's own autobiographical accounts of his life experiences. It
Speaker 1: tells the story of a young Gerta falling in love
Speaker 1: with a man in the country and ultimately leaving her
Speaker 1: for his work. In eighteen seventy six, she wrote a
Speaker 1: play in verse called The Spagnoletto. In this work, which
Speaker 1: is a five act tragedy, was published privately. She published
Speaker 1: a number of poems in the second half of the
Speaker 1: eighteen seventies in the early eighteen eighties, mostly in the
Speaker 1: periodicals Lippincott's Century and The New York Times. In eighteen
Speaker 1: eighty one, she published a full book of translations of
Speaker 1: Heinrich Kenna's works, titled Poems and Ballads of Heinrich Heina.
Speaker 1: That same year, she published an essay titled American Literature
Speaker 1: in defense of the work of writers in the United
Speaker 1: States as just as valid as the writing of their
Speaker 1: European predecessors and counterparts. Having studied literature, I think that
Speaker 1: was an argument people were still making and are still
Speaker 1: making a hundred years later. Certainly. Yeah, it was something
Speaker 1: that it was another part of that sense of otherness
Speaker 1: that she kind of always felt that. She was like,
Speaker 1: I feel like we're doing great work over here, but
Speaker 1: everyone is like, oh no, really, the seat of culture
Speaker 1: and literature is clearly still Europe, which I imagine is
Speaker 1: really frustrating for writers that are are doing really good work.
Speaker 1: Um Emma Lazarus was increasingly devoted to activism against anti
Speaker 1: Semitism in her twenties and thirties. She became a vocal
Speaker 1: advocate for New York's Jewish refugee population, and she spoke
Speaker 1: out against the anti Semitism that was rampant in Eastern Europe,
Speaker 1: writing both essays and poetry on the subject. In Tight two,
Speaker 1: she published a collection titled Songs of a Semite that
Speaker 1: Danced to Death and Other Poems. And publishing this work,
Speaker 1: Lazarus became a really controversial figure. There was the obvious
Speaker 1: issue of anti Semitism to deal with, but in proclaiming
Speaker 1: her Jewishness so clearly it ran really counter to the
Speaker 1: ideology of people like her father, who wanted to retain
Speaker 1: their cultural identity in a more private way to try
Speaker 1: to avoid causing conflict. In addition two Songs of a
Speaker 1: Semi Lazarus became a regular contributor to the Journal's American
Speaker 1: Hebrew UH and The Century, in which she published several
Speaker 1: essays from April eighteen eighty two to February eighteen eighty three.
Speaker 1: The essays was the Earl of Beaconsfield, a Representative Jew,
Speaker 1: Russian Christianity Versus Modern Judaism, and the Jewish Problem. All
Speaker 1: examined the issue of Jews in society, who she wrote,
Speaker 1: were faded to forever be antagonized by those around them.
Speaker 1: And it was in reaction to the prejudice against Jews
Speaker 1: that she witnessed that she started to promote the pre
Speaker 1: Zionist idea that a Jewish state needed to be established
Speaker 1: in Palestine. This was before Zionism was really coined and
Speaker 1: pushed by other people. In a moment, we'll talk about
Speaker 1: some of the other advocacy that Emma Lazarus engaged in,
Speaker 1: but we're going to pause first for a brief sponsor break.
Speaker 1: Emma's activism was not and find just to her writing, though,
Speaker 1: as a way to help Jewish refugees build a better
Speaker 1: life in the US, she helped found the Hebrew Technical
Speaker 1: Institute of New York, and there immigrants could receive vocational
Speaker 1: training to help ensure some sort of financial stability in
Speaker 1: their new lives. In eighteen eighty two, she worked hands
Speaker 1: on at the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, teaching English and
Speaker 1: assisting with lessons that would help immigrants merge with American society.
Speaker 1: That year and estimated two thousand Russian Jewish immigrants were
Speaker 1: arriving in New York. Every month, she visited the homes
Speaker 1: of immigrants on Wards Island, and she was somewhat horrified
Speaker 1: at the conditions there. The island had been made into
Speaker 1: an overflow camp for refugees, as other facilities in Brooklyn
Speaker 1: could just no longer take any more people they were
Speaker 1: completely full. On March eighty two, a piece that appears
Speaker 1: to have been written by Lazarus appeared in the New
Speaker 1: York Times, although it ran uncredited, and the article casts
Speaker 1: a sympathetic eye on the people at Ward's Island and
Speaker 1: how many of them were people of high esteem in
Speaker 1: their homeland, who in seeking refuge, we're going to start
Speaker 1: their new lives completely penniless. And it goes on to
Speaker 1: challenge and disassemble a lot of the stereotypes that Russian
Speaker 1: Jewish immigrants endured in New York, and it's stressed that
Speaker 1: they wished only to breathe the air of freedom. Lazarus
Speaker 1: spent some time in the mid eighteen eighties traveling abroad
Speaker 1: after she published Songs of a Semite. She visited both
Speaker 1: England and France, and it was during her first trip
Speaker 1: there in eighteen eighty three that she met and befriended
Speaker 1: Robert Browning, William Morris, and Henry James, among others. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because she was uh already really well known in literary
Speaker 1: circles in the US, and she was from a wealthy family,
Speaker 1: one she could afford to travel, and too, she had
Speaker 1: pretty easy introductions to a lot of society people throughout Europe,
Speaker 1: so she made a lot of very high profile friends.
Speaker 1: And that same year she also wrote a letter to
Speaker 1: her friend and publisher Philip Cowant, referencing an article that
Speaker 1: she had recently read the had a decidedly anti Semitic tone.
Speaker 1: She wrote quote to refer to the Sun article. It
Speaker 1: seems to me so coarse and vulgar that it deserves
Speaker 1: no reply from any self respecting Jew. It represents the
Speaker 1: habitual light in which we are regarded as a race
Speaker 1: by the Christians, but it happens to be couched in
Speaker 1: somewhat more offensive terms than usual. I am perfectly conscious
Speaker 1: that this contempt and hatred underlies the general tone of
Speaker 1: the community towards us. And yet when I even remotely
Speaker 1: hint at the fact that we are not a favorite people,
Speaker 1: I am accused of stirring up strife and setting barriers
Speaker 1: between the two sects. The particular article ought, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: to be treated with absolute contempt. It is too vile
Speaker 1: to touch. In late three she penned the poem that
Speaker 1: would become her most famous, The New Colossus. The New
Speaker 1: Colossus is a sonnet, and you might not know it
Speaker 1: by name, but you almost certainly know at least a
Speaker 1: couple of lines from it. We're going to get to
Speaker 1: the poem itself, and just the moment the New Colossus.
Speaker 1: This was actually written for charity. Lazarus wrote it so
Speaker 1: it could be auctioned off to raise money for the
Speaker 1: Pedestal for the Statue of Liberty. While France was giving
Speaker 1: the US the statue as a gift, it was up
Speaker 1: to the States to pay for a base that would
Speaker 1: support the massive monument, and this was something of an
Speaker 1: issue of contention. Coming up with the money to pay
Speaker 1: for a pedestal was a challenge, and there was a
Speaker 1: very real sentiment against the entire affair based on the
Speaker 1: idea that the whole thing was making the US look bad.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say it's not completely unheard of for there
Speaker 1: to be a gift like this that costs the recipient money,
Speaker 1: especially when it's a giant statue. Despite the negative opinion
Speaker 1: of a gift that also required significant expense on the
Speaker 1: part of the recipient just to receive the gift, the
Speaker 1: New York literary community rallied to try to raise funds
Speaker 1: for the base. The Art Loan Fund, Exhibition and Aid
Speaker 1: of the Bartholdy Pedestal Fund for the Statue of Liberty
Speaker 1: was mounted and this was an auction of art and
Speaker 1: literature created especially for the occasion, and it was managed
Speaker 1: by the American Committee for the Statue of Liberty. Emma
Speaker 1: Lazarus had been asked to participate by William Maxwell Everts,
Speaker 1: who was chairman of the American Committee for the Statue
Speaker 1: of Liberty, and the writer Constance Carrie Harrison, and Lazarus
Speaker 1: was reluctant initially. She was not accustomed to doing commissions,
Speaker 1: and she didn't write if she didn't feel moved to
Speaker 1: do so, so this idea of writing on command was
Speaker 1: not really in her wheelhouse normally. As she approached this poem,
Speaker 1: Lazarus imagined how the statue might regard the old world,
Speaker 1: and her work and advocating for the immigrant community really
Speaker 1: informed the voice that she gave the statue. W she
Speaker 1: considered the Mother of Exiles. She wrote the New Colossus
Speaker 1: on November two three, and it's pretty short, so we're
Speaker 1: going to read it in its entirety. Not like the
Speaker 1: brazen giant of Greek fame, with conquering limbs astride from
Speaker 1: land to land. Here at our seawashed sunset, gates shall stay,
Speaker 1: and a mighty woman with a torch whose flame is
Speaker 1: the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From
Speaker 1: her beacon hand glows worldwide. Welcome her mild eyes command
Speaker 1: the air bridged harbor that twins cities frame, Keep ancient lands,
Speaker 1: your storied pomp, cries she with silent lips. Give me
Speaker 1: You're tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe, free,
Speaker 1: the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the
Speaker 1: homeless tempest tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside
Speaker 1: the golden door. So that brazen giant that she mentions
Speaker 1: in the first line is a reference to the Ancient
Speaker 1: Colossus of Rhodes, which was a statue built somewhere between
Speaker 1: two ninety two and two a d. B. C. E.
Speaker 1: To commemorate a military conquest, and Lazarus characterizes the new
Speaker 1: monument in contrast as a welcoming presence rather than a
Speaker 1: conquering one. The poem was read at the auction on
Speaker 1: in December three, but not at the dedication of the
Speaker 1: Statue of Liberty in eighteen eighty six. Later, the New
Speaker 1: Colossus was published in the New York Times and in
Speaker 1: Joseph Pulitzer's New York World, but it quickly faded from
Speaker 1: public consciousness. And we are actually about to talk about
Speaker 1: the end of Emma Lazarus's short life, but we're going
Speaker 1: to take a quick break before we do. To hear
Speaker 1: from one of the fantastic sponsors that keep our show going.
Speaker 1: In March eight five, Emma's father, Moses Lazarus, died, and
Speaker 1: in April she set sail for Europe once again. This
Speaker 1: trip was a very long one. She kept traveling right
Speaker 1: into eighteen eighty seven. She started with visits to Yorkshire
Speaker 1: and London before moving on to the Netherlands, France and Italy,
Speaker 1: but by the end of the year she was not
Speaker 1: feeling well. She continued her travels in eighteen eighty six
Speaker 1: despite feeling ill. First she went back to England and
Speaker 1: then Holland and Paris, and she'd been planning another visit
Speaker 1: to Italy but ended up staying in Paris into seven
Speaker 1: because she just couldn't travel anymore. She stayed in Paris
Speaker 1: for six months before returning to New York in July,
Speaker 1: and that time she had developed a facial paralysis. She
Speaker 1: had lost her hearing in one year. Her eyesight had
Speaker 1: declined to the point that she could barely see. Her
Speaker 1: younger sister Annie had been with her in Europe and
Speaker 1: took care of her as she convalesced and took dictations
Speaker 1: so that Emma could keep up her correspondence. Lazarus never
Speaker 1: got to witness her poems rise to fame. She died
Speaker 1: on November nineteenth of eighteen eighty seven, and while her
Speaker 1: illness was never properly diagnosed, it is likely, based on
Speaker 1: the evidence UH and based on what people have gathered,
Speaker 1: that she probably died from Hodgkin lymphoma. She was only
Speaker 1: thirty eight. The funeral was held at her home in
Speaker 1: New York, and then she was buried in Cypress Hills
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn. The December issue of American Hebrew was a
Speaker 1: memorial to Emma Lazarus. It was more than twenty pages long,
Speaker 1: are than normal to accommodate all the poems and other
Speaker 1: various tributes that writers had sent for inclusion. The New
Speaker 1: Colossus went largely unmentioned in obituaries and writings about her
Speaker 1: after her death, aside from a tribute written by Constance
Speaker 1: Carrie Harrison Yea that was the writer who had asked
Speaker 1: her specifically to please write that poem. In the year
Speaker 1: after Emma died, her cousins set up the Emma Lazarus
Speaker 1: Club for Working Girls, and there young women immigrants could
Speaker 1: learn marketable skills such as sewing or clerical practices, but
Speaker 1: they could also study literature if they wanted to. This
Speaker 1: charitable effort troubled her immediate family, though they had never
Speaker 1: been entirely comfortable with Emma's activism, after her death, they
Speaker 1: had shifted the narrative of her life a little bit,
Speaker 1: playing down her controversial Zionist views. As you recalled from
Speaker 1: the beginning of the episode, her father had consciously worked
Speaker 1: to blend in with New York society and really played
Speaker 1: down the family's Jewish heritage. The family refused to allow
Speaker 1: any of Emma's pro Jewish poetry to be reprinted after
Speaker 1: her death. When her sisters Josephine and Annie published the
Speaker 1: two volumes set the Poems of Emma Lazarus In, Josephine
Speaker 1: wrote a biographical sketch of Emma. Yeah, that sketch got
Speaker 1: reprinted in a lot of places, and that's really kind
Speaker 1: of where her life story got a little bit um
Speaker 1: shifted around, where it wasn't quite an accurate portrayal of
Speaker 1: her anymore, but more like a very niceified version that
Speaker 1: left out any of her controversial views. In nineteen o one,
Speaker 1: though the New Colossus was rediscovered by Georgina Skyler, who
Speaker 1: was a friend of Emma's and Skylar had found the
Speaker 1: poem in a book that she happened upon in a bookshop,
Speaker 1: and she was inspired to resurrect her friend's work, and
Speaker 1: through Skylar's efforts, in nineteen oh three, the new colossus
Speaker 1: was inscribed on a plaque, and that plaque was hung
Speaker 1: inside the museum in the statue of Liberty's Pedestal, where
Speaker 1: it remains to this day. The Emma Lazarus Federation of
Speaker 1: Jewish Women's Clubs was formed in nineteen forty four by
Speaker 1: the Women's Division of the Jewish People's Fraternal Order of
Speaker 1: the International Workers Order for the i w O. It
Speaker 1: was founded as a wartime relief group, combating racism and
Speaker 1: fostering positivity in Jewish identity. From its founding until its
Speaker 1: dissolution in ninety nine, the group had at times been
Speaker 1: labeled as subversive and radical, and it did have ties
Speaker 1: to communism. It also went through various re orgs, but
Speaker 1: it was always focused on women's issues. The group didn't
Speaker 1: only advocate for Jewish women's causes, though that was its
Speaker 1: primary focus. The Emma Lazarus Federation joined forces with the
Speaker 1: Black Women's Group SO Journals for truth and justice during
Speaker 1: the fifties and sixties, and it also pressured the U.
Speaker 1: S Government to ratify the nineteen forty eight Genocide Convention.
Speaker 1: At its highest level of activity, the Mma Lazarus Federation
Speaker 1: had one hundred clubs within it, with membership totaling between
Speaker 1: four thousand and five thousand women. In Subways. Lazarus has
Speaker 1: become more enigmatic since her death. Questions related to her
Speaker 1: spinster lifestyle arose in the second half of the twentieth century,
Speaker 1: when a signet that she wrote titled Assurance was published
Speaker 1: for the first time. The signet begins, last night I slept,
Speaker 1: and when I woke her kiss still floated on my lips.
Speaker 1: The poem describes a dream of a romantic forest interlude.
Speaker 1: I would go so far as to say an erotic
Speaker 1: forest interlude that concludes with the woman referenced in the
Speaker 1: first line whispering quote and didst thou dream this could
Speaker 1: be buried, this could be asleep and love bethrall to death. Nay,
Speaker 1: what's soo? Seem Have faith, dear heart, this is the
Speaker 1: thing that is. The sonnet has naturally fueled speculation about
Speaker 1: Emma Lazarus's sexual identity. She had included it in an
Speaker 1: anthology of her own work that she was preparing just
Speaker 1: before she died. She understood that she was not going
Speaker 1: to survive, and she was really focused on her poetry surviving.
Speaker 1: But this poem was undated, which was unusual for her work.
Speaker 1: She had to have known it would be a little
Speaker 1: bit controversial, but this poem, like her activism, was omitted
Speaker 1: from the work by her sister's author Esther Shore, in
Speaker 1: her two thousand six biography of Emma Lazarus, discussed this
Speaker 1: poem and made a case that it can be interpreted
Speaker 1: as much about and simply embracing one's own sexuality as
Speaker 1: anything else. She said quote she wrote the poem as
Speaker 1: a dream vision and left it undated, not to elude us,
Speaker 1: but to redirect us. What the poem exposes is her
Speaker 1: unconscious and it tells us that she met it, if
Speaker 1: not a female lover face to face, and the sonnet
Speaker 1: the lover's enigmatic assurance is that this is the thing
Speaker 1: that is means in another idiom, this is the real thing,
Speaker 1: but it's also a thing that is real beyond denial
Speaker 1: or repression. Assurance is not a poem about choosing a lover.
Speaker 1: It is about being chosen by desire. It is a
Speaker 1: love poem, yes, but also a poem of vocation, about
Speaker 1: being called by eros to a vital sexual life. That is,
Speaker 1: of course one interpretation. That's the thing about poetry. Other
Speaker 1: people can interpret different ways. I had a definite interpretation
Speaker 1: when I read it. That is not something we could
Speaker 1: really repeat in the podcast. All right, then? Uh. There
Speaker 1: has been plenty of speculation also about a possible romance
Speaker 1: at one point between Emma Lazarus and Charles Decay, who
Speaker 1: was the brother of her best friend, Helena Decay, and
Speaker 1: the two Emma and Charles were very close for years,
Speaker 1: but it appears that whatever their connection was, it fell
Speaker 1: apart when Emma learned something scandalous about Charles, although what
Speaker 1: that thing was is unknown. But what we do know
Speaker 1: is that Charles, a poet in his own right, after
Speaker 1: finding out that she had discovered something, wrote a rather
Speaker 1: scathing kind of comedy poem to his brother in law,
Speaker 1: mocking Emma over the whole thing. So whether there was
Speaker 1: any true romantic affection between the two of them remains
Speaker 1: a mystery. I read some accounts that suggested that Helena
Speaker 1: always thought Emma had a thing for Charles, but that
Speaker 1: Charles never really cared about her. But then other people
Speaker 1: in their social circle mentioned that Charles was really quite
Speaker 1: fond of her. We don't know. It's all hearsay at
Speaker 1: this point, but if there had been any real romantic
Speaker 1: affection between them, that incident put an end to it.
Speaker 1: She definitely flirted with men in her life, and she
Speaker 1: also seemed fascinated by the idea of the so called
Speaker 1: Boston marriage of two women living together as a couple.
Speaker 1: But we really don't know anything specific about her personal
Speaker 1: inclinations or her relationships. It's all speculation. Yeah, even her
Speaker 1: letters between her and Charles Decay are nowhere to be found.
Speaker 1: There's like one and it's pretty boring. So we just
Speaker 1: don't know. But what is a parent is that while
Speaker 1: she had a very wide circle of friends and may
Speaker 1: have had romantic feelings for various people or not, her work,
Speaker 1: both as a writer and an activist, was always the
Speaker 1: thing that took precedent and was more important to her
Speaker 1: than anything else. There's a coda to this, which is
Speaker 1: I didn't want to say it at the top because
Speaker 1: it kind of gives away some of the story, but
Speaker 1: Here's why I selected this topic for an episode. I
Speaker 1: was on Twitter recently, you know where truth always lives.
Speaker 1: But there was an argument going on about current events,
Speaker 1: and someone referenced the new Colossus, and some other person
Speaker 1: replied to them, why should we care what some French
Speaker 1: guy wrote on a statue they sent us, And I thought, well,
Speaker 1: we gotta let people know that a woman actually wrote
Speaker 1: it was from the United States, just to help pare
Speaker 1: down the misinformation that may be floating in the world.
Speaker 1: That is why we selected m. Lazarus. She's also just
Speaker 1: an interesting figure. We have a lot of stories about
Speaker 1: activists in various different ways. Hers was a unique style
Speaker 1: in that she really did seem to want to use
Speaker 1: her privilege to get the word out, but at the
Speaker 1: same time she still maintained a very becaushy life for herself.
Speaker 1: So a lot of other poets that we have talked
Speaker 1: about have been poets who today have had more of
Speaker 1: a lasting face aim in terms of how their work
Speaker 1: is regarded, Whereas I think a lot of people like
Speaker 1: she's She's not as much of a household name and
Speaker 1: a lot of circles as say Walt Whitman. No, not
Speaker 1: at all. Um, and you know that people are definitely
Speaker 1: familiar with at least those few lines from the New Classes,
Speaker 1: but not necessarily her other work, a lot of which
Speaker 1: is really lovely. Yeah. I I will confess I was
Speaker 1: reading some various criticism of it, and she does not
Speaker 1: get treated terribly, uh delightfully by modern critics. I think
Speaker 1: even in her own time, some of her word choices
Speaker 1: were a little stilted and kind of like people either
Speaker 1: found them dry or a little bit removed. It was
Speaker 1: like one critic that I wrote was talking about how
Speaker 1: she wanted to talk about a lot of different parts
Speaker 1: of the human experience, but because she really didn't have
Speaker 1: that wide of a personal experience. You know, she traveled twice,
Speaker 1: but even so she spent like six months of those
Speaker 1: travels in a room basically and on her balcony because
Speaker 1: she was ill. So she kind of is talking about
Speaker 1: all of this stuff almost from a remove, and she
Speaker 1: was like, you can feel the distance between what she's
Speaker 1: trying to talk about and what it actually is. And
Speaker 1: also when she talks about other cultures that she never
Speaker 1: really experienced, there's always that weird kind of distance. But
Speaker 1: it's worth checking out. Yeah, people made a similar criticism
Speaker 1: about Phillis Sweetly, feeling like she was too removed from
Speaker 1: the work that she was talking about. Yeah, so it's
Speaker 1: fascinating stuff. I Uh, I always love a little bit
Speaker 1: of history involving lady writers, especially people that don't maybe
Speaker 1: get their due. Yeah, do you have listener mail for us?
Speaker 1: You do. I got to pull it up because I
Speaker 1: should have had it already and I didn't. Uh, this
Speaker 1: is a funny one. It's short, but it is in
Speaker 1: reference to our windsor McKay episode. But specifically, if you recall,
Speaker 1: we talked about a strip that he wrote called dreams
Speaker 1: of a rare Bit fiend, rare bit being uh like
Speaker 1: a rich she's that was melted onto toast as a snack,
Speaker 1: and it was said to give you bad dreams. Uh,
Speaker 1: And she writes, I love the podcast, and I had
Speaker 1: to send a little tidbit about rare bit dreams, the
Speaker 1: actual event, not winds or mackay's strip. There was a
Speaker 1: funny July review from Graham's Magazine of Emily Bronte's Wuthering
Speaker 1: Heights that opined quote, there is an old saying that
Speaker 1: those who eat toasted cheese at night will dream of Lucifer,
Speaker 1: the author of Wuthering Heights, has evidently eaten toasted cheese.
Speaker 1: How a human being could have attempted such a book
Speaker 1: as the Present without committing suicide before he finished a
Speaker 1: dozen chapters is a mystery, said, I have never heard
Speaker 1: the concept of rare bit evoking weird dreams beyond this reference,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to pass it along. That is kind
Speaker 1: of a very mean review, but it is interesting that
Speaker 1: it it went all the way back there and was
Speaker 1: being used as a snarky way to talk about somebody's writing.
Speaker 1: Since we were talking about a woman writer today, I
Speaker 1: thought that was an interesting tie in. Uh. If you
Speaker 1: would like to write to us and share any instances
Speaker 1: of rare bit dreams that you have come across or
Speaker 1: other you can do so at History Podcast at Houston
Speaker 1: Works dot com. You can also find us at missed
Speaker 1: in history dot com and all over social media as
Speaker 1: missed in History. To come to the website, you'll find
Speaker 1: our show notes episodes all the way back to the
Speaker 1: beginning before Tracy and I were ever involved in the show,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, occasional other fun things. So come
Speaker 1: and visit us at missed in history dot com. You
Speaker 1: can also subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen. For more on this and thousands of
Speaker 1: other topics, visit how staff works dot com.