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Het jaar van Omar Khayyám

Het jaar van Omar Khayyám. Janneke van der Veer
In: Boekenpost, 17 (2009) 101, p. 43-45

2009 is niet alleen het jaar van Darwin en Calvijn, het is ook het jaar van de Perzische dichter Omar Khayyám. Dit jaar is het namelijk 150 jaar geleden dat de eerste Engelse bewerking van aan hem toegeschreven gedichten verscheen. Bovendien is het 200 jaar geleden dat Edward FitzGerald (1809-1883), die voor deze bewerking heeft gezorgd, geboren is. Alle aanleiding dus voor een gesprek met Jos Biegstraaten, voorzitter van het Omar Khayyám Genootschap.

Edward FitzGerald’s Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Edward FitzGerald’s Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Richard Dalby
Book and Magazine Collector (2009), nr. 314, p. 44-61.

Dalby presents a short history of the Rubáiyát and highlights the most important and best known illustrated editions, also giving prices that were realized at recent auctions. The article is illuminated with sixteen illustrations from these editions, mainly by artists from the first decades of the previous century, such as Greiffenhagen, Palmer, Robinson, Dulac, Brangwyn, Bull, Geddes and Balfour.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam: Persia’s Poet-Scientist

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam: Persia’s Poet-Scientist. Rasoul Sorkhabi.
The World and I (2012) 1 (January)

December 4, 2011 marked the 880th anniversary of the death of one of the best known Oriental poets in the world: Omar Khayyam. Immortalized by its translation into English verse by Edward FitzGerald, “The Rubâiyât of Omar Khayyam,” has created a huge following in the West. Initially overlooked, the subsequent successes of FitzGerald’s and other translations can be said to have introduced new aspects to our understanding of poetry.

Edward FitzGerald, a reader “Of Taste”, and ‘Umar Khayyám, 1809-1883

Edward FitzGerald, a reader “Of Taste”, and ‘Umar Khayyám, 1809-1883. R.W. Ferrier.
Iran 24 (1986), pp. 161-187.

Summary

Edward Fitzgerald, writing to his friend, E. B. Cowell, in March 1867 on the fickleness of posthumous reputation, remarked that a hundred years ought to elapse before memorials should be made. The centenary of his death passed on June 14th 1983 and it seems appropriate to commemorate his memory, recall his humanity and reflect on his contribution to literature. He had two principal passions in life, reading and friendship. He described himself to Frederick Tennyson in 1850 as one who pretends “to no Genius, but to Taste” and disclaimed any pretensions to be a poet, for “I cannot write poems”. As for his friends, their presence glows from his letters. These two influences, imperceptibly interweaving themselves into the fabric of his personality, were responsible for that bright short decade in the middle of his life, when his “languid energies”‘ were galvanised into literary activity of which his poetic “version” of the Rubáyyat of ‘Umar Khayyám was the fascinating and controversial climax.