Edward FitzGerald's Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

By Omar Khayyam, Lincoln Perry, Robert D. Richardson and Edward FitzGerald

A work of staggering poetic beauty that has inspired the likes of John Ruskin, T. S. Eliot, and Robert Bly, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam was written in eleventh-century Persia and was largely unknown in the West until it was translated into English by Edward FitzGerald in 1859. In FitzGerald's hands, the individual Persian quatrains of the original coalesced into one of the most moving and often-cited modern poetic statements about loss, longing, and nostalgia. As Robert D. Richardson notes, The Rubaiyat is startlingly modern in its outlook and composition, and through it, one civilization speaks to another as equals and across a gap of almost a thousand years.

Annotated by Richardson and illustrated beautifully with the elegant watercolors of Lincoln Perry, this edition of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam will bring this affirmed classic to a new generation of readers. It is the perfect complement to Richardson's “biography” of The Rubaiyat, Nearer to the Heart's Desire.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
• Release date: Jun 14, 2016
• ISBN: 9781620406571

Omar Khayyam

Omar Khayyam (18 May 1048 – 4 December 1131) was a Persian mathematician, astronomer, and poet. He was born in Nishapur, in northeastern Iran, and spent most of his life near the court of the Karakhanid and Seljuq rulers in the period which witnessed the First Crusade. (Wikipedia)

Book preview

FOR ANN AND ANNIE

CONTENTS

Introduction: The Joyous Errand of Edward FitzGerald

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Note on the Text

Explanatory Notes

INTRODUCTION

THE JOYOUS ERRAND OF EDWARD FITZGERALD

Edward FitzGerald’s Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is the most wildly successful book of poetry ever published. Based on unconnected quatrains originally written in Farsi in eleventh-century Persia—now Iran—FitzGerald’s English rendition was published in London in 1859. The subsequent publishing history of the Rubaiyat is stupefying. By 1929 there had been 586 editions of FitzGerald’s translation. By 2007 there had been 1,330 versions of the Rubaiyat published in the West. There have been 32 different translations into English, 48 into Chinese, 16 into Japanese, 16 into Urdu, 12 into Arabic, 5 into Turkish, 7 into Russian, 4 into Thai, 3 into Bengali, 3 into Finnish, and at least one into more than 50 additional languages. It is hard to find another book, except perhaps the Bible, that has been more widely translated, published, read, and loved.

Omar Khayyam was an eleventh-century Persian poet, astronomer, mathematician, and philosopher who lived at the end of the Golden Age of Islam and who wrote, along with much else, hundreds of quatrains (ruba’i singular, rubaiyat plural). A ruba’i is a rhymed stand-alone quatrain, a simple and basic poetic form. Its tone is usually somewhere between that of a limerick, an epigram, and an epitaph. We know as much about the person Omar Khayyam as we know about Shakespeare—that is, almost nothing. He was born in Nishapur, in what is now Iran, and is buried there. There are of course stories, legends, and myths.

Edward FitzGerald, who is singularly responsible for bringing worldwide attention to Omar Khayyam’s writing, was a nineteenth-century Anglo-Irish gentleman who led a gypsy-like or Bohemian life. He translated more than a hundred of Khayyam’s quatrains from a Farsi manuscript in an Oxford Library, editing, adding, and arranging the material into a sort of unified narrative—he called it an Eclogue—much like an Elizabethan sonnet sequence or a Spoon River Anthology. Much has been written about FitzGerald’s accuracy as a translator versus his liberties as fellow poet. What is not in question is the greatness of his English poem, the hundred and one quatrains of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam which FitzGerald nursed through five editions. The first edition came out the same year as Darwin’s On the Origin of Species; the final one is the version reprinted here. If almost all of it comes ultimately from Khayyam, it is nevertheless FitzGerald who gets credit for recognizing the magic in the old Persian bottle and finding a way to uncork and release it into the modern world.

FitzGerald’s Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is not rural but

[salmondaze · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A deserved classic, Fitzgerald's translation of the poetry of Omar Kayyam, here presented in his first two editions, is simply transcendent. In fact I compared the two editions and even though they communicated the same pearl their "shells" were completely different. Fitzgerald said he took liberties with the original verse, and if he did I actually applaud him because what's contained in this volume is nevertheless a living thing in the English language. Rarely have I seen verse this wise, this celebratory, this probing through our materialistic world. If that's what Omar Kayyam had intended to communicate through his verse then Fitzgerald is actually truer to Kayyam than if he had stuck closely to what was literal and there.

[waldheri_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A great poem rendered in rhyming format by Edward FitzGerald. This book also has very beautiful illustrations by Edmunt J. Sullivan.

[twileteyes · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Verses from this are the first I ever memorized and had to recite (that I can remember anyway). It was in 8th grade, and when I reread the book at leisure as an adult, I was amazed at how different my perception of the themes is now that I am 10 years older.

[jessiqa_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Omar Khayyám was a twelfth-century scientist and poet in Persia. This slim volume contains seventy-five quatrains (rubáiyát) each accompanied by an illustration by Sullivan. The text was translated by Fitzgerald in the late nineteenth century. The central theme of the poetry presented her seems to be drink and be merry, but especially drink. Khayyám is very fond of the daughter of the vine, as he calls it. Some of the poems also reveal a personal philosophy that no one knows why we are here on this earth and we never will learn, so live for today because yesterday has passed and tomorrow never really comes. I enjoyed the poetry, though it was sometimes difficult to understand. (That probably owes to the date of the translation and to my own unfamiliarity with poetry in general.) Each drawing coincides with a quatrain of the poem. The artwork is truly wonderful, line and ink drawings with expressive faces and lithe bodies. I quite liked this book and would like to read another edition, with a more modern translation.

[reinadecopiaypega · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I haven't a clue what I just read, was way over my head. To my poor addled brain it was just line after line of sentences that made no sense to one whose Menopause Fairy has long ago eaten her brain.

[dasam-5 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I originally read this in high school and have not ventured back since then. It is in many ways a long plea for carpe diem and a kind of "To His Coy Mistress" seduction song, with the mistress being both a woman and wine. I was reminded of the number of common expressions which came from this poem. One I did not recall, but admire is:

"The Stars are setting and the Caravan/Starts for the Dawn of Nothing..."

[anietzerck · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

One thing I learned...Omar Khayyam was all about the wine drinking! I've mentioned before, poetry isn't really my cup of tea but drinking as much wine as I do, it was entertaining to read this collection of poetry. Though marked as 14th century literature according to first known edition, Omar Khayyam actually lived during the 11th and 12th century. To read something this old was definitely interesting. This edition in particular actually contained the first and fourth edition of the book and although very similar, the translations are different. I enjoyed comparing how much the world changes in just a few years. (Sorry I can't remember what the exact years were, and I already returned the book to the library.) Anyway, not bad. And now I've almost completed the poetry across the centuries challenge, only one more book to go! ;)

[aliceanna-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Lovely poetry -- I didn't realize some of the more familiar lines came from this -- "The moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on."

[helenliz_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I was expecting more from this than it seemed to deliver. it's a series of 4 lines verses that sound good, but, mostly, seemed to be concerned with drinking! There's a lot of taverns and pots and vines going on in here. I'm not sure this was the great work of mystical literature I was expecting.

[hellbent_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed the Rubaiyat so much that I memorized it as a young man, while walking home from work. I was only able to recall the entire book 4 times, but I can still recall certain quatrains.

[kaycliff · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Collins' delightful little edition, 6" x 4", red-leather-bound, includes an introduction by Laurence Housman, illustrations by Marjorie Anderson, and versions of both the 1959 and the 1868 versions of the poem.

[tututhefirst_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The poetry is beautiful, the rhyme scheme is melodic, and the illustrations definitely enhance the words. I came away with an appreciation of the beauty of the words, the pictures, and life in general. It can be read in about an hour. It can be studied and analysed for a lifetime.

[bluereader-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Lovely illustrations by Dulac.

[antiquary_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

An interesting linguistic curiosity

[mandochild · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The particular edition I read comes with an amazing wealth of detail, including a long introduction, a facsimile of the original manuscript and detailed information on the translation from the Persian (Farsi). Unfortunately I only managed to read a few pages of the introduction and didn't have time to read the quattrains with the attention they deserved. As a result, I have only my own uneducated impressions to go by. I was fascinated by the tension and ambiguity between divinity and earthly pleasures (wine). My sense was that this tension is deliberate. A colleague summed it up beautifully as the impossible tension between the desire to live divinely, but the knowledge that it is physically impossible to do other than live in the real world, which involves acquiring money and possessions, and earthly pleasures. This is an impossible tension to reconcile and yet it exists. What did seem clear was the view that it is better to worship God sincerely in a tavern than to feign worship in a mosque. Absolutely fascinating reading.

[shoreline_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Timeless & Deep Poetry, with a good dose of obtuse, philosophical humor. Highly Recommended.
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