Khayyam, Omar ix. Illustrations of English translations of the Rubaiyat. W.H. Martin, S. Mason.
Encyclopaedia Iranica Online, July 2009
The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam contain some of the best-known verses in the world. The book is also one of the most frequently and widely illustrated of all literary works. The stimulus to illustrate Khayyam’s Rubaiyat came initially from outside Persia, in response to translations in the West.
The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Rachel Martin Cole.
Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies, 34 (2008), nr. 2, p. 40-41, 93.
Edward FitzGerald’s English translation of The Rubaiyat, a twelfth-century book of Persian poetry, sparked a sensation among nineteenth-century publishers and readers. His work, entitled The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, possesses a dream like quality, rich imagery, and appealing beauty that are attested to by the publication of hundreds of editions between 1859 and the present. From his first translation of the Rubaiyat to his death in 1883, FitzGerald completed five versions of the text. The Persian original comprised a collection of over one thousand quatrains, and FitzGerald felt free to transform the work in his own way, rearranging the verses and taking liberties with language. The result was a product that was less a reflection of its medieval Persian origins than the tastes of its nineteenth-century American audiences.
Paradise enow. John Hollander.
In: Edward FitzGerald’s The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Ed. by H. Bloom. Philadelphia, Chelsea House, 2004. p. 185-194.
(From Yale Review 86, nr. 3 July 1998)
Hollander looks at paraphrases and satires inspired by the Rubaiyat and at editions and illustrations of the work.
The Russian perception of Khayyam: from text to image. F. Abdullaeva, N. Chalisova, N., Ch. Melville.
In: The great ‘Umar Khayyám. Leiden, Leiden University Press, 2012. pp. 161–188.
The authors show the extreme popularity of Khayyám in Russia, even before Fitzgerald’s translations were published. The English translation only added to Khayyám’s popularity. The authors investigate how different translations of a single quatrain were made and how a large number of illustrated translations usually erotic, were made based on these translations. They also examine the contemporary popularity of Khayyám and the ready availability of editions of his quatrains, from large bookstores to tiny book-stalls. The authors examine different translations in each generation and how these translations helped to popularize Khayyám. Attention is also paid to literary forgery and how it acquires national value and prestige: D. Serebryakov “claimed Omar Khayyám for the nation” in 2000 by stating that Khayyám’s native town was in Tataria.
Astronomical References In The Ruba’iyât Of Omar Khayyam. Imad-Ad-Dean Ahmad.
Delivered to the Third International Conference on the Inspiration of Astronomical Phenomena, Mondell, Sicily, January, 2001.
Omar Khayyam was both an astronomer and a poet. We examine the astronomical references in different translations of his poetry and in Elihu Vedder’s illustrations of the first American edition of Edward Fitzgerald’s famous translation as the takeoff points for discussing the controversy as to the meaning of his poetry and the differences in culture between 11th-century Iran where he wrote them and 19th-century Britain and America where Fitzgerald and Vedder respectively were born.
Vedder’s drawings for Omar Khayyám’s Rubáiyát. The Atlantic Monthly, 55 (1885) 327 (January), pp. 111–116.
Vedder’s accompaniment to the Song of Omar Khayyám. Scudder, H.E. The Century Magazine, 29 (1884) 1 (November), pp. 3-9