Omar Khayyam. Poems. A modern translation

Omar Khayyam. Poems. A modern translation. Siamak Akhavan. Eugene : Resource Publications, 2021. xv, 45 p. ISBN paperback: 9781666715507; ISBN hardcover: 9781666715514.

122 quatrains. Text in English and Persian.

“This book presents a selection of Khayyam’s poems in their original Persian language along with their English translations in a faithful and modern version. By relying only on the original Persian version of Khayyam’s poems, and using the author’s own body of literary and linguistic knowledge, this book presents a modern translation of Omar Khayyam’s poems since Edward Fitzgerald’s Rubaiyat in 1859.” [From back cover]

Nr. 1

‘Beyond heavens’ sphere is unseen,
around and about which all careen.

When your turn, be calm and sane.
Life’s not a sole toil, cycles remain.

Orlando Greenwood illustrates the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Orlando Greenwood illustrates the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Danton O’Day. [S.l.], Blurb, 2021. ISBN: 9781034492504.
Orlando Greenwood (1892-1989) was a brilliant, talented artist, who already at the age of 21-22 felt stronlgy attracted by the verses of Omar Khayyám. His illustrations to the Rubáiyát were recently discovered and presented in this book by Danton O’Day for the first time. The nine illustrations are included in the text of FitzGerald’s first version.

Khayyam in rhyme

Khayyam in rhyme. Poem-to-poem translation of ruba’iyat. Reza Noubary. Meadville, Fulton Books, 2021. 150 p. ISBN: 9781649520647.

Noubary presents a poem-to-poem translation of some of Khayyam’s popular Rubaiyat to English – both literally and conceptually. The translations follow the style of the original poems. It also includes some of the translator’s/author’s own poems inspired by Khayyam.

Quatrains of Omar Khayyam

Quatrains of Omar Khayyam, Astronomer-Poet of Persia : Metamorphosis of Nothingness. Mitra Ara.
Newcastle-upon-Tyne : Cambridge Scholars Publisher, 2021. x, 237 p. ISBN: 9781527564480.

A selection of 100 quatrains, in Persian and English, that have been authenticated by four known Persian authorities (Foroughi, Hedayat, Ghani and Dashti). The author intends to bring the reader closer to the Persian originals, allowing readers to connect an draw their own conclusions according to their time and place.

Omar Khayyám in movies

In a recent paper Milad Minakar, Amir Hossein Chitsazian study Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat in English and Persian language feature and non-biographical movies.

A still from Queen of Desert

The aim is to expound any relationships between the film and Rubaiyat; therefore, according to the type of the applied quatrain, movie genre, plot, some categories are propounded to classify the movies in which Khayyam’s quatrains are quoted such as Transiency-Death, Transiency-Carpe Diem, Heaven and Hell, and Determinism. Indeed, these categories can be applied to the theme of the movies or a single scene in which the stanza is quoted.

Milad Minakar, Amir Hossein Chitsazian (2020). The Study of Rubaiyat attributed to Khayyam in Movies . In: CINEJ Cinema Journal, Vol. 8, nr. 2 (2020), p. 324-352
DOI 10.5195/cinej.2020.271

Friedrich Rosen: orientalist and diplomat

In the recently published Friedrich Rosen. Orientalist scholarship and international politics Amir Theilhaber describes the diplomatic career and scholarly-literary productions of Friedrich Rosen “to investigate how politics influenced knowledge generated about the “Orient” and charts the roles knowledge played in political decision-making regarding extra-European regions. This is pursued through analyses of Germans in British imperialist contexts, cultures of lowly diplomatic encounters in Middle Eastern cities, Persian poetry in translation, prestigious Orientalist congresses in northern climes,leveraging knowledge in high-stakes diplomatic encounters, and the making of Germany’s Islam policy up to the Great War.”

An extensive chapter 6 deals with Omar Khayyam’s Ruba’iyat and Rumi’s Masnavi, in the context of politics and scholarship of translating Persian Poetry.

Friedrich Rosen. Orientalist scholarship and international politics. Amir Theilhaber. Berlin, Munich, Boston: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2020. viii, 627 pp. ISBN: 978-3-11-063925-4.
Also available as Open Access document.

Friedrich Rosen

Irankultur.com shows a short article about Friedrich Rosen, the well known German translator of Omar Khayyám’s rubáiyát.
Friedrich Rosen (1856-1935) was an orientalist, a diplomat und a politician. From May till October 1921 he was also German minister of foreign affairs. From 1916 till he was appointed as German envoy in The Hague, in the Netherlands.

See: Friedrich Rosen und die Übersetzung der Rubajat Omar Chayyams in: Irankultur.com 17 Dez. 2020

See also a recent post about Amir Theilhaber’s recently published biography: Friedrich Rosen. Orientalist scholarship and international politics (Berlin 2020)

Douglas Taylor (1938-2019)

The death of Douglas Taylor, 27th May 2019, means a great loss, not only for his wife and children and all other loved ones, but also for the international Omar Khayyám community.

Douglas was a keen collector of the rubáiyát, he took the verses of the old Persian poet to heart and found comfort and consolation in them. More than that, he spent much of his time and energy in studying, analysing and comparing the various translations and editions of the verses ascribed to Khayyám. Over the years he built a respectable library of all sorts of editions and related material.

All these years he seemed to work in silence, maybe voluntarily, but when he came into contact with other scholars, collectors and researchers, he enjoyed the exchange of information, the discussion and the suggestions for further research. Answering questions about whatever what, if related to Khayyám, seemed his second nature.

I came to know Douglas when I was preparing my bibliography of the Rubáiyat of Omar Khayyám, somewhere in 2008. It was Michelle Kaiserlian who alerted me a certain American gentleman, who also collected rubáiyát editions, and through her Douglas and I started an e-mail contact that lasted until a few weeks before his tragic death.

He alerted me to new or unknown editions, he answered my questions almost as if he was expecting them already and soon after our first contacts it became obvious to me that here was a man who was very deep into Omar, not as a maniac but as serious scholar. And though he was rather hesitative about publishing his work or sending it out in print, he was always more than willing to share the results of his work. Proof of that is his work on uncovering, studying and documenting all sorts of material relating to Khayyám.

In later years it turned out that he had already started comparing various editions and translations of the rubáiyát, which would help me enormously in preparing my Concordances of the Rubáiyát  website. Without his help and unselfish contributions, it would be in no way what it is now.

A few weeks before his passing away, he sent me a message that he had been in hospital, but that he now was back in the saddle again, looking forward to return to his Omarian studies. He had recently been studying the sources of Eric Hermelin’s Swedish translations, and was also preparing to investigate the sources of the Finnish translation by Toyvo Lyy.

He had also studied French translations, and even went as far as trying to read or understand articles and chapters in the Dutch language, probably with the assistance of Google Translate, but it showed how eager he was to learn and understand what Khayyam was all about and what Omar meant to other people. It also showed that he looked at Khayyám’s rubáiyát from a wider view than just the English speaking world.

He more than once  expressed his regrets that he wasn’t able to join meetings with fellow omarians abroad, and on one occasion, last year when there was a conference in the Netherlands, he wrote that he wished he could be there, “even if I didn’t understand one word”.

Now I am truly sad that he is no longer with us, but I am also happy that my wife and I were able to meet with Douglas and his wife Avlona, in 2014.

Thanks Douglas, for all your good works, rest in peace.