The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam: a critical assessment of Robert Graves’ and Omar Ali-Shah’s ‘translation’

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam: a critical assessment of Robert Graves’ and Omar Ali-Shah’s ‘translation’. J.C.E. Bowen
Iran: Journal of Persian studies 11 (1973), pp. 63–73

When Cassells in November 1967 published Robert Graves’s versification of 111 of Omar Khayyam’s quatrains, they announced it to be “for the first time a true translation of Omar Khayaam which reverses his philosophy as presented, in ignorance of the Persian language and of Sufi symbolism, by Edward FitzGerald”. They also called it “one of the most important literary revelations of our time”. In this article, the validity of these claims is examined.

Graves and Omar

Graves and Omar. Anthony Burgess.
Encounter (1968) (Jan.), pp. 77–80

Comments on the Graves-Ali Shah translation of the Rubáiyát.

The real Omar Khayyam

The real Omar Khayyam. B. Csillik.
Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 10 (1960), p. 58-77.

Review of Arberry's edition of 1949.
This edition, as the Author-Editor himself tells us in his Introduction, had to fulfill the purpose of quickly presenting to the public, with a minimum of critical apparatus, the newly discovered facts in order to give share to others in the exciting work of further research. Beside the Introduction the book contains nothing but the printed text of the MS with the critical apparatus, the English versions and an alphabetical list of the quatrains. The Editor restored the dotted däl’s wherever the copyist omitted them by obvious inadvertency and — what the copyist did not even try to do — he distinguished the pä and gäf letters from the bä and käf letters. This peculiar employment of the däl, bä and käf letters speaks for the antiquity of the MS. The dots supplied by the Editor are not indicated, and this may be regretted in view of the potential hints which the presence or absence of the dots of the däl’s might have given to the student of phonology and linguistic history.

The quatrains of ‘Omar-i-Khayyam

The quatrains of ‘Omar-i-Khayyam. C.N.S.
In: The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 1931 No. 2 (April), p. 457-459

Critical review of Rosen’s edition of 1928.

Omar Khayyám

Omar Khayyám
In: Contemporary Review, Vol, 109, 1916, Jan./June, p. 401-404

Review of John Pollen’s translation of 1915

Recherches sur les Ruba’iyat de ‘Omar Khayyam

Recherches sur les Ruba’iyat de ‘Omar Khayyam. Cl. Huart
In: Journal Asiatique, vol. 10 (1905), No. 5, p. 179–183

Review of Christensen’s “Recherches sur les Ruba’iyat de ‘Omar Khayyam”, 1905