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.