A Victorian poem: Edward FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. C. Wilmer.
In: FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Popularity and neglect. Ed. by A. Poole et al. London, Anthem Press, 2011. pp. 45-54.

By looking at the Rubáiyát’s context Wilmer tries to answer the question how FitzGerald was able – through Persian lyrics of the Middle Ages – to speak to his contemporaries. First thing to be said is that Khayyám’s sceptical and more or less hedonistic view of the world belongs, as filtered through FitzGerald, to the era in which Darwin – in most respects as modest and retiring a man as FitzGerald – was dismantling old certainties.