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Omar Khayyam’s Ruba’iyat and Rumi’s Masnavi Interpreted

Omar Khayyam’s Ruba’iyat and Rumi’s Masnavi Interpreted. The Politics and Scholarship of Translating Persian Poetry. Amir Theilhaber.
In: Friedrich Rosen. Orientalist Scholarship and International Politics. Berlin, Munich, Boston: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2020. viii, 627 pp. ISBN: 978-3-11-063925-4.
Also available as Open Access document.

Summary

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.

Tamám : trace, reinterpretation and the periphery of poetic translation

Tamám : trace, reinterpretation and the periphery of poetic translation. Simon P. Everett. Colchester, Essex University, 2019. Thesis (Ph.D).

Summary

This thesis consists of two parts: my main creative project, Tamám; four translations of the Chinese T’ang poet Yu Xuanji; and an accompanying critical commentary. Tamám is a present-day reimagining of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám consisting of one-hundred-and-one quatrains. It frames translation as a creative process informed by philosopher Jacques Derrida’s la trace (trace): that source texts and other sources defer their meaning to one another, simultaneously absent and present in the genesis of new writing. These sources tangentially influence and “mark” the content and meaning of a new text. The main translational elements of Tamám are the Persian source text of The Rubáiyát; Edward FitzGerald’s 19th century translation of The Rubáiyát; the case of the Somerton Man; the sociopolitical climate of 21st century south-east England; translation theory and deconstruction theory.

Un voyageur dans la tourmente

Un voyageur dans la tourmente : lecture de la pensée d’Omar Khayyâm : avec adaptation de 133 quatrains et de poèmes en arabe de Khayyâm et d’autres auteurs. Fathi Ennaïfer. Tunis : Fathi Ennaïfer, 2018. ISBN: 9789938006216. 249 p.

Summary:
Relecture des quatrains de Khayyam, leur adaptation vérsifiée, des références à ses traducteurs, une réflexion sur sa pensée philosophique.