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The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. I.B.H. Jewett.
In: Edward FitzGerald’s The Rubáiyat of Omar Khayyám. Ed. by H. Bloom. Philadelphia, Chelsea House, 2004. p. 21-58.
(From Edward FitzGerald. © 1977 by G.K. Hall & Co.)

Jewett pinpoints interesting moments in the correspondence between Fitzgerald and his mentor, Cowell, comparing their versions of the same Khayyam quatrain, thus illustrating “dramatically the difference between translation and creation”. The importance Fitzgerald attached to his earlier translation of Jami’s Salaman and Absal is also touched upon. Fitzgerald emphatic stipulation that Omar never be published without Salaman was apparently disregarded after his death. The article further gives a brief treatment of the problem of the Persian quatrains’ authenticity and of Khayyam’s possible authorship and possible mysticism.

Umar Khayyam and his age

Umar Khayyam and his age. Otto Rothfeld. Bombay, Taraporevala, 1922.

Summary:

Study of Omar Khayyám’s life and works, in correlation to the historical and spiritual development of Islam. With quatrains from Whinfield’s translation.

Contents:
Umar’s Life and Period
The Significance of Umar’s Ruba’iat

Translation or travesty?

Translation or travesty? an enquiry into Robert Graves’s version of some Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. John Charles Edward Bowen. Abingdon, Abbey Press (Berks), 1973. Freshet library, no. 2. IX, 43 p. ISBN: 0900012323.

Summary:
Bowen discusses whether Edward FitzGerald’s (1859) or Robert Graves’s (1967) version of Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat is a more accurate translation; it explains the scope of the great Islamic philosophy of Sufism, and questions whether a mystical interpretation of the quatrains accords with Khayyam’s known scepticism; and it quotes conclusive evidence that Robert Graves’s version of the Rubaiyat, so far from having been translated from a manuscript which has lain bidden in the Hindu Kush for the past 800 years, is based on the text of a book published in London in 1899.

Omar Khayyám : Some Facts and Fallacies

Omar Khayyám : Some Facts and Fallacies by Reynold A. Nicholson.
In: Aberdeen University Review. Nr. 2 (1914), Feb., p. 138-142

Since FitzGerald introduced him to Europe, Omar Khayyám has enjoyed a world-wide reputation exceeding that of all the rest of the Persian poets together. Does he deserve it? What was his character and philosophy? Was he a materialist or a mystic, or neither? How far is the English version an original poem, and can we fairly use it as a key to the riddle? These are some of the questions that I am going to discuss and in part, I hope, to answer.