Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (Barnes & Noble Digital Library)
By Omar Khayyam and Steven Schroeder
4/5
()
About this ebook
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.
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)
Read more from Omar Khayyam
Edward FitzGerald's Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sufistic Quatrains of Omar Khayyam Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (Barnes & Noble Edition) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPersian Literature: The Sháh Námeh, The Rubáiyát, The Divan, And The Gulistan Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Sufistic Quatrains Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Persian Literature, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan, Volume 1 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Rubaiyat Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Translated into English Verse Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Rubayyat Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRubáiyát of Omar Khayyam, Rendered into English Verse Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Sufism of the Rubáiyát, or, the Secret of the Great Paradox Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOmar Khayyam Poems: A Modern Translation Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (Barnes & Noble Digital Library)
Related ebooks
The Story of a Round-House and Other Poems Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Monk; a romance Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5James Joyce: The Complete Collection Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Autobiographical Myth of Robert Lowell Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSystematic Mythology: Imagining the Invisible Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe English Poetic Mind: An Essay Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Dharma Boards - Manifesto Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Sarispa Thirteen Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5James Joyce: The Ultimate Collection Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTroilus and Criseyde (Barnes & Noble Digital Library) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wordsworth Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAria da Capo: "Please give me some good advice in your next letter. I promise not to follow it" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe First Yeats: Poems by W. B. Yeats, 1889–1899 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMasters of Prose - Émile Zola Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Sorrows of Satan (Book Center) Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Marie Grubbe Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Complete Works of Kahlil Gibran Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLucifer Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDevil Lore Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Deformed Transformed: "Friendship is Love without his wings!" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBiographia Literaria Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDe Amicitia, Scipio's Dream Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Romance of Tristan and Iseult Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5White Stains Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSt. Petersburg Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Notorious Australians Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5AMERICA A PROPHECY (Illustrated Edition) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Mystic Will Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Shaving of Shagpat Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Poetry For You
The Things We Don't Talk About Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Way Forward Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Beyond Thoughts: An Exploration Of Who We Are Beyond Our Minds Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Love Her Wild: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pillow Thoughts II: Healing the Heart Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Selected Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You Better Be Lightning Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Bedtime Stories for Grown-ups Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Odyssey Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDaily Stoic: A Daily Journal On Meditation, Stoicism, Wisdom and Philosophy to Improve Your Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Leaves of Grass: 1855 Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Prophet Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Rumi: The Art of Loving Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Inward Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dream Work Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Waste Land and Other Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dante's Inferno: The Divine Comedy, Book One Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Twenty love poems and a song of despair Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tao Te Ching: A New English Version Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Enough Rope: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Divine Comedy: Inferno Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Iliad: The Fitzgerald Translation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (ReadOn Classics) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Odyssey: (The Stephen Mitchell Translation) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Edgar Allan Poe: The Complete Collection Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Complete Poems of John Keats (with an Introduction by Robert Bridges) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gilgamesh: A New English Version Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Tradition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (Barnes & Noble Digital Library)
505 ratings15 reviews
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I feel like this translation was significantly coloured by Colonial perspectives of translator Edward FitzGerald and lacks the truth of the poetry I expected.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Beautifully illustrated in an art deco style in both coloured and b&w line drawings.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This 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!
- Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5I 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.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I 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..." - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5One 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! ;)
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Lovely poetry -- I didn't realize some of the more familiar lines came from this -- "The moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on."
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I 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.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I 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.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Collins' 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.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 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.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Lovely illustrations by Dulac.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5An interesting linguistic curiosity
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The 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.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Timeless & Deep Poetry, with a good dose of obtuse, philosophical humor. Highly Recommended.---
Book preview
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (Barnes & Noble Digital Library) - Omar Khayyam
THE RUBÁIYÁT OF OMAR KHAYYÁM
OMAR KHAYYÁM
TRANSLATED BY EDWARD FITZGERALD
INTRODUCTION BY STEVEN SCHROEDER
Introduction and Suggested Reading © 2008 by Barnes & Noble, Inc.
This 2012 edition published by Barnes & Noble, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher.
Barnes & Noble, Inc.
122 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10011
ISBN: 978-1-4114-6668-5
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