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A Comparative Study of Modulation in English Translations of Khayyam’s Quatrains

A Comparative Study of Modulation in English Translations of Khayyam’s Quatrains. Mojtaba Delzendehrooy ; Amin Karimnia.
Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences 70 (2013), pp. 28–40.

During the process of translation, the relatedness of content and form sometimes leads to some changes in semantics or point of view of the original text. This study tries to investigate the instances of modulation occurred in the translation of poetry. To this end, two English translations of Khayyam’s quatrains (FitzGerald and Emami) were studied to see what kinds of modulation have been used by the translators and consequently how they have changed the semantics and points of view of the original work; i.e. Khayyam’s quatrains. The two translations were studied carefully to identify the instances of modulations occurred.

Rescuing Omar Khayyam from the Victorians

Rescuing Omar Khayyam from the Victorians. J. Cole.
Michigan Quarterly Review, 52 (2013) 2, pp. 169-173.

The Rubaiyat or quatrains attributed to the mathematician and astronomer Omar Khayyam (d. circa 1126) of Nishapur were made famous by the loose rendering of Edward Fitzgerald, first published in 1859. Specialists in Persian literature now agonize over how many, if any, of these poems were actually written by Khayyam. For a century after his death he was not renowned as a poet, even to those who knew him and wrote about him. Slightly later sources occasionally attribute one or two, or some as many as thirteen, Persian quatrains to the scientist. The oldest substantial book of them giving him as the author is a 1460 manuscript from Shiraz now held in the Bodleian Library at Oxford (this was a principal source for Fitzgerald). Obviously it is very late, and eighty-two of the poems in it also appear in the divans or poetry collections of other authors.

Les lectures de Khayyâm en France

Les lectures de Khayyâm en France. Sarah Mirdâmâdi.
La Revue de Tehran (2010) 59 (Octobre)

Les célèbres Robâiyât de Khayyâm ont fait l’objet d’un très grand nombre de traductions en différentes langues occidentales. Si la première et la plus fameuse fut la traduction anglaise de Fitzgerald, à partir de la seconde moitié du XIXe siècle, plusieurs traductions françaises des Quatrains ne tardèrent pas à être publiées. Les fameux poèmes suscitèrent de nombreux débats concernant la personnalité de leur auteur : Khayyâm était-il un hédoniste ou même un ivrogne aux penchants nihilistes avide de profiter des jouissances de l’instant présent ?

Metaphor, translation, and autoekphrasis in FitzGerald’s Rubaiyat

Metaphor, translation, and autoekphrasis in FitzGerald’s Rubaiyat. Herbert F. Tucker.
Victorian Poetry, 46 (2008), nr 1, p. 69-85.

Among the many virtues of Christopher Decker’s edition of the FitzGerald Rubaiyat is its patient elucidation, not only of the various circumstances surrounding the text’s multiple versions, but of what we can infer about the translator’s equally various attitude toward his work. Enthusiastic, torpid, apologetic, cavalier, across two decades and more between the first edition of 1859 and the final one of 1879 the anonymous agent who once signed himself in correspondence “Fitz-Omar” remains hard to read with assurance–by reason partly of a diffidence that was specific to the man’s…

Accident, orientalism, and Edward FitzGerald as translator

Accident, orientalism, and Edward FitzGerald as translator. Annmarie Drury.
Victorian Poetry, 46 (2008), nr 1, p. 37-53.

In the mid 1850s, Edward FitzGerald wrote to Edward Byles Cowell, the friend who tutored him in Persian, about the two men’s efforts to translate Persian poetry. FitzGerald had decided that Persian poetry in English should seem Persian still. “I am more & more convinced of the Necessity of keeping as much as possible to the Oriental Forms, & carefully avoiding any that bring one back to Europe and the 19th Century,” he announces to Cowell, a scholar of Eastern languages who patiently redacted FitzGerald’s translations, including many stanzas of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.

The tradition of Translating the Rubaiyat of Khayyam – An Approach to Culture Specific Terms

The tradition of Translating the Rubaiyat of Khayyam – An Approach to Culture Specific Terms. Zahra Buali, Behrouz Ebrahimi.
TranslationDirectory.com, (2008), nr. 1547.

As the linguists and the translators argue, there are some words- calling culture specific terms which are rooted in the culture of any nation and country. Since there are often so many culture specific terms in poems, translating these terms and transferring them from one language to another one having two different cultures is a difficult process. Transferring of culture specific terms from one culture to another and understanding them by the target audience in the target culture is dependent on having familiarity with the source culture and traditions.

Strategies of appropriation: Khayyam and Rumi

Strategies of appropriation: Khayyam and Rumi. F. Farahzad.
In: Translation Studies 4 (2006), pp. 44-52.

This paper attempts to explore the issue of representation by focusing on two major translations of Persian poetry and literature, one produced in mid 19th century and the other produced in late 20th century.

The tale of the inimitable Rubaiyat

The tale of the inimitable Rubaiyat. T. Leacock-Seghatolislami.
In: Edward FitzGerald’s The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Ed. by H. Bloom. Philadelphia, Chelsea House, 2004. p. 195-209.
(From Translation Persepctives XI. 2000)

Summary

In choosing to translate only the “Epicurean” quatrains, Fitzgerald gave the Rubaiyat a superficiality and a one-sidedness not found in the original. However, Tracia Leacock-Seghatolislami’ presents contrasting opinions. Divorcing the English poem from the Persian rubai, she exposes Fitzgerald’s lack of knowledge of Persian, the result being “a text so discombobulated that it is hard to trace in the Persian”. Despite this, Fitzgerald’s rendering “displays a sensitivity, a delicacy in the turn of phrase, which suggests that the poetic Muse was permanently encamped on his doorstep” (pp. 198-9). Though forcefully asserting the “true significance of much of Khayyam’s poetry, which often has a Sufistic feel to it”, the author fails to give convincing references or arguments for this.

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.