The Loveliest and the Best: The Tapestry of Influence of Omar Khayyám’s Rubáiyat on the Works of Bob Dylan. John M. Radosta
In: Dylan Review Vol. 5.2, Fall/Winter 2023-2024

When Omar Khayyám began writing quatrains, called rubáiyát in his native Persian, it was perhaps to escape from his extensive work on algebra and astronomy. He could not have had any idea that his poetry would become the first link in a chain of collaboration that stretched ten centuries or more into the future. Among the most prominent luminaries who have come under Khayyám’s spell are T.S. Eliot and Woody Guthrie. But one of the most important links, one that encompasses both Eliot and Guthrie, is Bob Dylan. From the “Persian drunkard” in “Absolutely Sweet Marie” to the many direct allusions on the 2012 album Tempest, and culminating on 2020’s Rough and Rowdy Ways, Dylan has filled his cup with Omar’s views and fermented them into his own poetic transformations. Both of these artists have fomented change through long term impacts on society, and in conversation across millennia they continue to decant their ideas in ever-fresh vintages.