Secular pleasures

Victorian Poetry published a very interesting essay in their latest issue, by Ayşe Çelīkkol, titled ‘Secular Pleasures and FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám‘. Pleasure
The author starts from the point of view that FitzGerald’s poem “imagines a secular experience that resists the reign of reason. Musing on transcendental matters cannot help the speaker to make sense of his own existence, but neither can rational inquiry. (…) he relates to the material world around him by seeking and embracing pleasure. Through the senses of wonder, connectedness, and enchantment inspired by the self’s engagement with the natural world, FitzGerald transfers some of the most fulfilling aspects of religion onto a secular experience.”
The essays then goes on to demonstrate how this idea is an “articulation of  some of the insights that have come to inform the critical study of the secular today”.

Secular Pleasures and FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. By Ayşe Çelīkkol.
Victorian poetry, vol. 51 (2013), nr. 4, (winter), pp. 511-522.
DOI: 10.1353/vp.2013.0029 (Abstract, project MUSE)

Khayyam exhibition in Tehran

Only a few days are left to hurry down to Tehran for an exhibition of calligraphy works of Khayyám’s poems  in the University of Tehran.  The collection which includes Khayyam Latin calligraphy was created by the Iranian calligrapher Mojtaba Karami who has vast experiences in the art. Some 30 works of the artist have been displayed at the exhibition, depicting some selected poems of Khayyam’s famous quatrains in ten different languages.

The exhibition started Sunday, February 16, and will run until February 19, at the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, University of Tehran.

From: Press TV, February 17, 2014

A tribute to Omar

The tribute was organised by the Pakistan-Norway Association (PANA) on February 1, this year, with a buffet, a fruit drink and a lecture by a Central Asian expert on Khayyam and poet Prof. Aftab Kazi.

KhayyamQuatrains from Khayyam’s poetry were performed by Opera singer Lynly Butt and the film on the life and times of Khayyam “The Keeper — The Legend of Khayyam” was screened. However, in Professor Kazi´s view “the directors and producers commercialise and distort the history.”

Read more about the event in The Express Tribune of February 3, 2014.