Archives

Omar Khayyam: astronomer, mathematician and poet

Omar Khayyam: astronomer, mathematician and poet. John Andrew Boyle.
Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 52 (1969) 1, p. 30-45

General article investigating what is known about Khayyám, the years of his birth and death, his background, and the various manuscripts that have come to light in recent years.

The Persian Rubā’ī: Common Sense in Analysis

The Persian Rubā’ī: Common Sense in Analysis. Michael Craig Hillmann.
Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 119 (1969) 1, p. 98–101.

Comment on an article by G. L. Windfuhr, entitled “Die Struktur eines Robai” (ZDMG 1968, pp. 75- 8)

Graves and Omar

Graves and Omar. Anthony Burgess.
Encounter (1968) (Jan.), pp. 77–80

Comments on the Graves-Ali Shah translation of the Rubáiyát.

The Omar Khayyam Puzzle

The Omar Khayyam Puzzle. L.P. Elwell-Sutton.
Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society 55 (1968) 2, pp. 167–179

A recent publication has stimulated interest once again in the Persian poet Omar Khayyam-though admittedly to the English speaking world he is already by far the best-known, and for many the only, figure in Persian literature. Yet in fact he is a rather shadowy, insubstantial person, largely ignored in his own land of Iran, and about whom surprisingly little is recorded in history. Much of what is related about him is purely legendary: for instance, the well-known story of his schooldays friendship with the vizier Nizam al-Mulk and Hasan Sabbah, founder of the sect of the Assassins-impossible on chronological grounds alone. Other legends have been ad added through the centuries, particularly by some of the Sufi sects in Iran and Afghanistan.

Die Struktur eines Robai

Die Struktur eines Robai. Gernot L. Windfuhr.
Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 118 (1969) 1, p. 75–78.

Die Begeisterung über die Robais von Omar Xayyam ist auch heute noch nicht erloschen. Es ist vor allem die durch Fitzgeralds Nach-dichtung betonte- und verzerrte -Melancholie, die die Aufmerksamkeit heutiger Iranisten auf die Klärung des Weltbildes dieses Dichters konzentriert. Im folgenden werde ich an einem frei gewählten Robai Omars aufzeigen, daß ein Robai nicht nur Inhalt hat sondern auch Form; daß beide sich bedingen, und daß sich der Inhalt gerade zu mechanisch und zwangsläufig aus der Formanalyse ergibt.

FitzGerald’s Rubaíyat as a poem

FitzGerald’s Rubaíyat as a poem. William Cadbury.
ELH 34 (1967) 3, p. 541–563

Cadbury argues that the Rubáiyát is not lyric but “anti-lyric,” since its coherence depends upon our imagining an implied speaker.