Archives

Death Deemed Undead. The Fragility of Life and the Theme of Mortality and Melancholia In Omar Khayyam’s ‘Rubaiyat’

Death Deemed Undead. The Fragility of Life and the Theme of Mortality and Melancholia In Omar Khayyam’s ‘Rubaiyat’. Abhik Maiti.
American Research Journal on English and Literature. [2018, in Press]

Summary

he term “Vairagya” refers to a deeply ruminative cynicism arising out of wisdom, knowledge and awareness about the ways of the world especially its perplexing transience and man’s search for meaning in the grand scheme of things. No other topic engenders as much vairagic thinking as does the imponderability of life’s purpose, its relevance and meaning. The manifestation of this thinking can be seen in prose tracts, poetry, schools of philosophy, expositions, sayings and aphorisms. Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat belongs to this manifestation. With death as the final and unyielding reality it was but natural for Omar Khayyam to bring out the perplexing nature of human existence and passions there in for questioning in his rubai.

How Khayyám Got Lost in Translation. Cultural Errors and the Translators of the Rubaiyat

How Khayyám Got Lost in Translation. Bentolhoda Nakhaeï.
In: Speaking like a Spanish Cow: Cultural Errors in Translation. Clíona Ní Ríordáin, Stephanie Schwerter (eds.). Stuttgart : Ibidem Press, 2019. 368 p.
ISBN: 9783838272566.

Summary:
What is a cultural error? What causes it? What are the consequences of such an error? This volume enables the reader to identify cultural errors and to understand how they are produced. The meta-translational problem of the cultural error is explored in great detail in this book. The authors address the fundamental theoretical issues that underpin the term. The essays examine a variety of topics ranging from the deliberate political manipulation of cultural sources in Russia to the colonial translations at the heart of Edward FitzGerald’s famous translation The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Adopting a resolutely transdisciplinary approach, the seventeen contributors to this volume come from a variety of academic backgrounds in music, art, literature, and linguistics. They provide an innovative reading of a key term in translation studies today.