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Percy Shelley, “Ozymandias”

Like “The New Colossus,” “Ozymandias” is a sonnet that meditates on the symbolic significance of a statue. In Shelley’s case, he uses the statue of an ancient Egyptian king, Rameses II, to consider the ephemeral nature of power and the relentless passage of time. Lazarus’s poem is more overtly political than Shelley’s, but their similar subject matter makes them worthy companions.

Rudyard Kipling, “The White Man’s Burden”

It is interesting to consider “The New Colossus” alongside “The White Man’s Burden,” Kipling’s poem in support of U.S. imperial expansion. Although both poems support a political message, their messages are, in many ways, fundamentally opposed. Lazarus’s poem opens by disavowing the patriarchal attitude of conquest, yet this attitude is precisely what Kipling’s poem upholds.

Walt Whitman, “I Hear America Singing”

Lazarus’s poem, “The New Colossus,” envisions a country of immigrants from different lands that is nonetheless unified under the same banner of liberty. Whitman’s poem, “I Hear America Singing,” offers a similar vision of a unified America. The speaker of this poem imagines that every American sings his or her own song, and the many voices all braid together into a chorus that’s greater than the sum of its parts. Though the terms of unity are different, it’s worth reading these poems together for the way they insist on the United States as a place where differences constitute a strength rather than a weakness.

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