The Impact of Power and Ideology on Edward FitzGerald’s Translation of the Rubáiyát. A Postcolonial Approach. Bentolhoda Nakhaei
In: TranscUlturAl, 11 (2019) 1, p. 35-48
The Impact of Power and Ideology on Edward FitzGerald’s Translation of the Rubáiyát. A Postcolonial Approach. Bentolhoda Nakhaei
In: TranscUlturAl, 11 (2019) 1, p. 35-48
Khayyam’s Quatrains as Fitzgerald’s Rubáiyat. Khayyam’s Quatrains as Fitzgerald’s Rubáiyat. Ismail Alghamdi, Mohammed Albarakati.
In: Journal of Translation and Language Studies, 5 (2024) 1, pp. 65-81.
Research studies from around the globe on Omar Khayyẚm’s Persian quatrains and their translation into English by the poet, writer, and translator Edward Fitzgerald, are in abundance. Researchers are, in general, in praise of the translation and give credit to Fitzgerald for making Khayyẚm a world-renowned poet. However, the translation has rarely been approached from a socio-political perspective, or a look into Fitzgerald’s ideological manipulation of the original. The present research study investigates two issues with Fitzgerald’s translation- ideological manipulation and selective translation. The study also looks into Khayyẚm’s life and his works. It probes into the effects this translation left on the literary scene. The study involves a comparative literary translation analysis to compare and contrast the elements found in Fitzgerald’s translation and two Arabic translations. Employing Lefevere’s (1992) theory of ‘translation as rewriting,’ this paper assesses the extent to which a translator’s ideology can lead to a misrepresented product of translation (Lefevere, 1992). The study adopts textual analysis as a research method to capture the epicurean elements recurrently emphasized by Fitzgerald in his translation.
The Crowded Borderlands of an Iconic “Translation”: Material and Immaterial Paratext of FitzGerald’s Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Christine Ruymbeke
In: The Routledge Handbook of Persian Literary Translation. Shabani-Jadidi, Pouneh; Higgings, Patricia J.; Quat, Michelle (eds.) London, Routledge, 2022. ISBN: 9781003052197
Cosmic poetry of Omar Khayyam and its artistic exposition using batik techniques. Victoria Nikulina; Muhammad Rashid Kamal Ansari
Mystic Thoughts – Research Journal of Sufism and Peace, 1 (2015) 1, pp. 61–94.
This study compares seven translations of Omar Khayyam, five in English, one in Urdu and one in Russian. These translations are free translations from the Persian. Translators in most cases have translated giving a flavor of their own views about the poetry of Omar Khayyam. So, all the translations appear different while translating the same quatrain. Eight quatrains of Omar Khayyam which this study terms as cosmic are selected and their translations are compared. Finally, eight paintings created by one of the authors Victoria Nikulina are introduced which illustrate the cosmic views of Omar Khayyam. These paintings utilize the mediums of Batik Art
Comment la traduction des figements linguistiques et culturels influence les réseaux sémantiques des Quatrains d’Omar Khayyâm. Bentolhoda Nakhaei.
L’imaginaire d’une vie, 2 (2015)
This study aims to investigate how fossilized linguistic forms may have been deformed in translation and how this may have had an impact on the underlying networks of signification in the first English and French translations of Omar Khayyâm’s Rubaiyat in XIX century. Antoine Berman’s theories will serve as reference to try to find out how the original linguistic and cultural balance may have been transformed through the process of translation of a major text in Persian literature towards French and English languages.
The Rubáiyát and its compass. Annmarie Drury.
In: Translation as Transformation in Victorian. Annmarie Drury. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2015. pp. 147-191.
Edward FitzGerald described his translation of Omar Khayyám’s Rubáiyát, which he produced in four versions ranging from 75 to 101 stanzas, as centered on the theme of carpe diem. In musical terms, the poem might be described as variations on that theme; in visual terms, as a kaleidoscopic exploration of it. Following the lead of Omar Khayyám (1048–1131), a Persian poet and scientist, FitzGerald made his Rubáiyát elaborate a philosophy of “seizing the day”: through lamentation, through the recounting of personal experience, through bald assertions of defiance against conventional piety, through metaphorical representations of a world in which human beings lack meaningful volition, and through vignettes – especially the longest, most fanciful one, in which the poem’s speaker overhears a group of pots speculating about their creator.
Voice in Khayyam’s Rubaiyat and FitzGerald’s English translation. Saeedeh Bisayar; Mahdi Safari; Mousaahmadian
International journal of English language, literature and translation studies, 2 (2015) 1, pp. 114–124.
This study attempted to examine the concept of “voice” in Khayyam’s Rubaiyat compared with Fitzgerald’s English translation through investigating the extent of ideological changes Fitzgerald applied in his paraphrase and through analysis of the existing voice in every selected quatrain of Khayyam’s Rubaiyat. For this purpose, six Persian quatrains by Khayyam have been selected randomly and their equivalences have been traced in the first edition of the translation of Rubaiyat by Fitzgerald.
Omar FitzGerald’s Rubaiyat. A panacea for Victorian era. Mahdi Baghfalaki; Zeinab Mahmoudibaha.
New Academia: An International Journal of English Language, Literature and Literary Theory, 4 (2015) 1, pp. 92–98.
The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, often called ―the single best-selling book of poetry ever to appear in English‖, was an outlet relief for Victorian era and a source of inspiration for the major Victorian poets as well. Why should this be so? Why should an obscure dilettante’s translation of the quatrains of a minor Persian poet have gone more or less straight to the reading public’s heart and stayed there for a hundred years or so? This paper is an attempt to analyze the reasons beyond the success of Edward Fitzgerald‘s The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyamin Victorian era.
FitzGerald’s Anglo-Persian Rubáiyát. R. Taher-Kermani.
Translation and Literature, 23 (2014), nr. 3 (324-335)
This article examines Edward FitzGerald’s translation practice and the poetics of his Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (1859) in order to to enrich and supplement previous critiques. FitzGerald succeeded in ‘Persianising’ his re-writing of the rubáiyát by importing matter of peculiar Persian significance. In order to identify it, his translation of Khayyám needs to be read with, so to speak, a Persian eye; it has to be scrutinized as a native critic would read and analyse the poetry of, for example, Hāfiz. This is the fundamental approach of this essay.
Woestijn waar ik dit paradijs aan dank – Claes vertaalt FitzGerald vertaalt Chajjaam. B. Crucifix.
Filter 21 (2014) 2, p. 7-19.
Paul Claes is a notorious Flemish translator, most famous for his translations of classic and modernist texts; but he is also a novelist and a poet, a critic and a scholar. This article examines how translation and writing interconnects in Claes’s translations and pastiche of Edward FitzGerald’s (free) translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Because of a cultural difference in legal status and representation, translating and writing are often considered to be strictly separate activities, establishing a hierarchical distinction between ‘creative’ and ‘derivative’ modes.