The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (Barnes & Noble Edition)

By Omar Khayyam and Steven Schroeder

From the Persian astronomer and philosopher Omar Khayyam comes this collection of poems that will take your breath away.  The quatrains are simple and spontaneous yet brimming with beauty.  Not discovered until 1859, they are now some of the best-known and most frequently quoted verses.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barnes & Noble
• Release date: Sep 1, 2009
• ISBN: 9781411428119

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

INTRODUCTION

EDWARD FITZGERALD’S TRANSLATION OF RUBÁIYÁT OF OMAR Khayyám is a mosaic of joyful resignation, a celebration of life here, now, fully aware of its limits. The pieces with which FitzGerald composed the poem are quatrains—four line verses—selected from among the many written by the Persian astronomer-mathematician Omar Khayyám in the eleventh and twelfth centuries in what is now Iran. FitzGerald approached Khayyám’s quatrains the way a mosaic artist might approach the fragments of a broken vase, sifting through the pieces to find the best fit, breaking some to make them fit better. In Khayyám, he found little jewels, hard pieces with a beauty of their own. But as he worked with them, he began to see them as a single poem, arranged from the rising of the sun to the rising of the moon, all set in the Persian garden of a Victorian imagination—not a narrative, but a space in which to enjoy life now rather than simply drifting into resigned submission to the stern judges of Khayyám’s Islam and FitzGerald’s Christianity.

FitzGerald was born in 1809 in Suffolk, England, into a family whose wealth enabled him to live a life of quiet leisure devoted to study and writing. He attended Cambridge University and became acquainted there with some of the best-known writers of the day, including the novelist William Makepeace Thackeray (author of Vanity Fair) and Alfred Tennyson (who later became Poet Laureate). FitzGerald published his first book, a Platonic dialogue called Euphranor, in 1851, followed in 1852 by a collection of old sayings titled Polonius. He published translations from both Spanish and Persian before producing the free translation of Omar Khayyám’s Rubáiyát for which he is best remembered.

FitzGerald’s version of Khayyám’s Rubáiyát is among the most influential English poems of the Victorian era, and it may stand alone as the most widely known. Casual readers who could not quote a line of Tennyson or Browning and would not know Thackeray by name know "A little bread beneath the Bough, / A Flask of Wine, a Book

Reviews for The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (Barnes & Noble Edition)

[catherinemilos · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I feel like this translation was significantly coloured by Colonial perspectives of translator Edward FitzGerald and lacks the truth of the poetry I expected.

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

Beautifully illustrated in an art deco style in both coloured and b&w line drawings.

[bart_leahy-301476 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is an odd one. It reminds me of the Book of Ecclesiastes if Solomon had gotten too deep into his cups while writing it. A quick read, though!

[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.---