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Orientalism translated – Omar Khayyam through Persian, English and Hindi

Orientalism translated – Omar Khayyam through Persian, English and Hindi. Harish Trivedi.
In: Colonial transactions. English literature in India. Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1995., p. 29-52.

The Khayyam texts assembled in this essay constitute a partial but significant narrative of the formation of the modem Indian identity not only in terms of a Perso-Indian response to a Perso-Anglian poetic construct, but also in terms of the constantly shifting grounds of the linguistic basis of that response. The progress of Khayyam from Persian not initially into Hindi but into English into Hindi into English-English into Indian-English not only reflects closely the linguistic-cultural evolution of modem India from c. 1780 to 1989: it also provides a complex ‘oriëntalist’ sub-text of our colonial and post-colonial condition over this period.

In search of Omar Khayyam

In search of Omar Khayyam. Ali Dashti. Translated from the Persian by L.P. Elwell-Sutton. London, Allen & Unwin, 1971. ISBN: 0048910420 (Persian studies monographs; 1). Reprinted by Routledge, 2011.

Contents

Introduction.
Note on Transliteration.
Preface to the Persian Second Edition.
Part 1: In Search of Khayyam
1. Khayyam as Poet
2. Khayyam as Seen by his Contemporaries
3. Meanness or Common Sense?
4. Hero or Martyr?
5. A Dispute with a Prince
6. Khayyam from his own Writings
7. Khayyam and Sufism
8. Khayyam and Isma’ilism
Part 2: In Search of the Quatrains
1. The Key Quatrains
2. The Axis of Life and Death
3. Khayyam’s Literary Style
4. Khayyam and his Imitators
5. Khayyam’s Wine-Poetry
6. Khayyam as Seen by the West
7. The Selected Quatrains
8. Some Khayyam-like Quatrains
Part 3: Random Thoughts
1. ‘Whence we have come, and whither do we go?’
2. ‘If it was bad, whose was the fault but His?’
3. ‘A tiny gnat appears – and disappears’
4. ‘The Withered Tulip Never Blooms Again’
5. ‘Whether this Breath I take will be My Last.’
Appendix I: Biographical Notes.
Appendix II: Glossary of Technical Terms.
Bibliography.
Index.

Edmund Dulac’s Book Graphics and the Problem of Orientalism in British Illustration of Edwardian Era and the Second Decade of XXth Century

Edmund Dulac’s Book Graphics and the Problem of Orientalism in British Illustration of Edwardian Era and the Second Decade of XXth Century. Dmitry Lebedev.
In: Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Art Studies: Science, Experience, Education. Atlantis Press, November 2019.

Summary

At the turn of the XIX-XX centuries, Europe-wide enthusiasm about the Eastern art, which varied from Iranian miniature to Japanese engraving, led to the popularity of many artists whose works were impacted by Orientalism. In these circumstances, large London publishers, annually producing luxury gift books for Christmas, trying to adjust to the mass excitement around the Eastern art, invited young and promising graphic artists to illustrate these publications. Among the invited artists who actively cooperated with such publishers was the outstanding French-English illustrator Edmund Dulac (1882-1953). The article reveals one of the key aspects of Dulac’s oeuvre. The author considers artist’s attempts to convey the thematic and stylistic originality of the Oriental art in the context of book illustration of the Edwardian era and the second decade of XXth century. The work traces Edmund Dulac’s creative career and examines the cycles of his illustrations in order to identify both typical and original stylistic and compositional techniques used by the author to create works in the spirit of orientalist aesthetics. The article also deals with oriental works of Dulac’s contemporaries and analyses them in comparison with each other.

The wine of wisdom. The life, poetry and philosophy of Omar Khayyam

The wine of wisdom. The life, poetry and philosophy of Omar Khayyam. Mehdi Aminrazavi. Oxford, Oneworld Publishing, 2005. 396 p. ISBN: 1-85168-355-0.

Summary:
The intoxicating message of Khayyam’s famous Ruba‘iyyat created an image of exotic Orientalism in the West but, as author Mehdi Aminrazavi reveals, Khayyam’s achievements went far beyond the intoxicating message within these verses. Philosopher, mathematician, scientist, and mystic – his many different identities are examined here in detail, creating a coherent picture of this complex and often misunderstood figure.

Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. Khayyam’s life and works
2. Reconstructing a tarnished image: Omar Khayyam according to his contemporaries and biographers
3. Khayyam within the intellectual context of his time
4. The Ruba’iyyat
5. Khayyam and sufism
6. Khayyam’s philosophical thought
7. Khayyam the scientist
8. Khayyam in the west
Epilogue
Appendix A: Translations of the philosophical treatises
Appendix B: The Ruba’iyyat – Edward FitzGerald’s translation
Appendix C: Arabic poems of Omar Khayyam
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Infinite transformation: The modern craze over the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam in England and America, c. 1900-1930

Infinite transformation: The modern craze over the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam in England and America, c. 1900-1930. Michelle Kaiserlian. Proquest Dissertations and Theses, 2009. Illustrated. 374 p. ISBN: 9781109586534.

Summary
“In the first critical study of the Rubáiyát craze as a whole and as a creative and historical phenomenon, I examine visual and literary responses to the poem in the form of illustrations, parodies, advertisements, and religio- philosophical debates to determine the Rubáiyát’ s overwhelming and enduring resonance in the culture. I argue that people’s engagement with and their myriad responses to the poem performed a kind of cultural work during a period of great social, economic, technological, scientific, and religious upheaval. I demonstrate how the Rubáiyát became a vehicle through which people processed the rapid changes of modern life and how poem and craze alike provided a tool to define and order an increasingly uncertain and fragmented world.“

Contents

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xiii

INTRODUCTION 1

PROLOGUE 20
The Imagined Elites of the Omar Khayyám Club

CHAPTER ONE 35
In (and Out of) Omar’s Garden: Illustrating the Rubáiyát

Out of the Garden: Taking Omar on Holiday
In an Oriental Garden
The Symbolic Garden

CHAPTER TWO 81
Rubáiyát Parodies and Modern Life: The Omar Cure-all

Defining the Rubáiyát Parody
Nationalism, Fraternity, and the British Rubáiyát Parody
The Other Among Us: Views of Dominance and Compassion
Risky Business and Deviant Behavior: Control and Resistance in the Realm of Leisure
Courtship: Changing Rituals for Modern Life

CHAPTER THREE 133
Consumerism and the Rubáiyát

Too Much and Never Enough: Rubáiyát Mania
Production and Consumption in the Modern Middle Class

CHAPTER FOUR 161
Omar Sells: Advertisements Based on the Rubáiyát

Parody-Advertisements
Advertising Schemes

CHAPTER FIVE 185
The Rubáiyát as Doctrine, or “What Would Omar Do?”

Religious Climate
The Rubáiyát as Doctrine: Problems of Interpretation
In Search of Omar Khayyám
Khayyám’s Skepticism and the Lure of Modern Science
The Question of Immortality
The Triumph of Free Will over Fate

CONCLUSION 223

APPENDIX 228
Edward FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam, first and fifth editions

ILLUSTRATIONS 239

BIBLIOGRAPHY 317

CURRICULUM VITAE