Professor Hans (J.T.P.) de Bruijn, 1931-2023

A few days ago, we received the sad news of the passing of Prof. Dr. J.T.P. (Hans) de Bruijn, emeritus professor New Persian Language and Culture.

Hans de Bruijn was a member of the Nederlands Omar Khayyám Genootschap since 1997, and he barely missed one of the biannual meetings of the club. Even more than that he nearly always presented a paper on a wide range of Omarian subjects.

At first De Bruijn was somewhat reticent regarding the weight and importance assigned to Khayyám. It didn’t stop him however from exploring untrodden fields in Dutch Khayyám reception, always in the broader context of Persian poetry and culture in general. Proof of this wider perspective is his translation of a selection of quatrains older than those translated by E. FitzGerald, together with quatrains from other Persian poets, and an extensive epilogue on the ruba’i, its origins and aftermath, and Khayyám’s appreciation in Dutch poetry: De ware zin heeft niemand nog verstaan. (Amsterdam, Bulaaq, 2009). Preceeding this volume was Een karavaan  uit Perzië, an extensive anthology of classical Persian poetry (Amsterdam, Bulaaq, 2002). In 2020 a selection of De Bruijn’s essays and articles was published as Pearls of meaning : studies on art, poetry, sufism and history of Iranian studies in Europe. (Leiden, 2020)

De Bruijn also contributed significantly to the Yearbooks of the Dutch Society, to conferences and a to number of exhibitions in 2001 and 2009.

Hans was a kind, generous person, always interested and full of mild and subtle humor.

Asghar Seyed-Gohrab, presiding the Dutch Society, wrote an In Memoriam on his Beyond Sharia weblog, acknowledging De Bruijn’s academic contributions to the field of Persian culture and Islamic literatures.

A Rubáiyát library

The Rubáiyát Library Catalogue is a new free online database of editions and translations of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám.

The catalogue can be used to search for translators, contributors (editors, artists etc.), publishers, as well as language, media type and so on. There is also a range of browsing options. There is no login required.

The contents of the Library database are taken mainly from existing bibliographies and other bibliographic sources. New titles are added regularly and can be browsed under ‘Newly added titles’. As of to date the database contains some 1.500 titles.

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.

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.

Omar’s birthday

Today, May 18, Omar Khayyám’s birthday is celebrated worldwide, maybe more so now that Google produced a ‘doodle’ representing the famous poet-scientist. This novelty was picked up by various news websites and newspapers, all acknowledging the old scientist’s reputation as a man of science, poetry and wisdom.

The Google search engine provides over 3 million results when you search for ‘Omar Khayyám’, which is rather depressing than motivating to do any further studies on Khayyám. So here is a selection of some recent books on Khayyám and his rubáiyát.

The Great ‘Umar Khayyám. A Global Reception of the Rubáiyát. A.A. Seyed-Gohrab. Leiden, Leiden University Press, 2012. 267 p. (Iranian Studies Series). ISBN: 9789087281571. [Online available at Open Access]
This volume collects eighteen essays on the history of the reception of ‘Umar Khayyám in various literary traditions, exploring how his philosophy of doubt, carpe diem, hedonism, and in vino veritas has inspired generations of poets, novelists, painters, musicians, calligraphers and film-makers.

FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Popularity and Neglect. Edited by Adrian Poole, Christine van Ruymbeke, William H. Martin and Sandra Mason. Anthem Press, 2011.
240 p. ISBN 9780857287816.
This volume of essays is based on a conference held in July 2009 at Trinity College, Cambridge to celebrate the bicentenary of the birth of Edward FitzGerald (1809) and the 150th anniversary of the first publication of his ‘Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám’ (1859).

The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. An updated bibliography. Jos Coumans. Amsterdam, Leiden University Press, 2010. 250 p. ISBN: 978-908-72-8096-3.
The bibliography lists a new selection and description of more than 1.000 editions of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám.

A book of verse. The biography of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Garry Garrard. Stroud, Sutton, 2007. 270 p. ISBN: 978-0-7509-4631-5 (Hardback).
The book tells the story of how The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám has provided delight and fascination for centuries.

The Art of Omar Khayyam. Illustrating FitzGerald’s Rubaiyat. William H. Martin & Sandra Mason. London-New York, Tauris, 2007. 184 p. Index. ISBN 978-84511-282-0.
The authors tell the story of the popularity of FitzGerald’s Rubaiyat, and survey how different illustrators have approached the task of interpreting the individual themes and topics of this poem.”

The wine of wisdom. The life, poetry and philosophy of Omar Khayyam. Mehdi Aminrazavi. Oxford, Oneworld Publishing, 2005. 396 p. ISBN: 1-85168-355-0.
Philosopher, mathematician, scientist, and mystic – his many different identities are examined here in detail, creating a coherent picture of this complex and often misunderstood figure.

There are numerous websites on Omar Khayyám as well, but there is one that stands out as a platform for discussion and exchanging information: Omar Khayyam Rubaiyat.

For a more detailed and up to date survey of books and articles see Omar Khayyám.