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Martin Heidegger and Omar Khayyam on the Question of “Thereness” (Dasein)

Martin Heidegger and Omar Khayyam on the Question of “Thereness” (Dasein). M. Aminrazavi.
In: Islamic philosophy and occidental phenomenology on the perennial microcosm and macrocosm. Dordrecht, Springer, 2006. Vol. 2, pp. 277-287.

In comparing two philosophers who belong to two distinct philosophical traditions, one often runs the risk of superficiality. That is, by finding similarities, either conceptual or linguistic, one may conclude that the thinkers in question are advocating the same concepts. One may go further and ask, “So what if the two figures belonging to two different schools of thought agree with respect to one or a set of ideas?”

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.

Edward Fitzgerald: Melancholy, Orientalism, Aestheticism

Edward Fitzgerald: Melancholy, Orientalism, Aestheticism. David G. Riede.
In: Allegories of One’s Own Mind. Melancholy in Victorian Poetry. Columbus, Ohio State University Press, 2005. p. 188 – 202.

Riede’s book concludes with a chapter on FitzGerald, in which the Rubáiyát is read as providing a link between the deeply troubled melancholy of the early Victorians and the more disengaged lassitude of late-Victorian aestheticism.

Orientalist and liberating discourses of East-West difference – Revisiting Edward Said and the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Orientalist and liberating discourses of East-West difference – Revisiting Edward Said and the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Mohammad Tamdgidi.
The Discourse of sociological practice 7 (2005), nrs. 1&2 (Spring/Fall), p. 187-201.

The article focuses on the text of Professor Edward Said with regards to the use of East-West difference. The author presents an argument that distinguishes the literary and political rhetoric of Said and the substantive point he made with regards to East-West difference and orientalism. According to the view of Said, human history is a history of constant reciprocity and exchange of ideas and influences across cultures and traditions.

The Fin de Siècle cult of FitzGerald’s “Rubaiyat” of Omar Khayyam

The Fin de Siècle cult of FitzGerald’s “Rubaiyat” of Omar Khayyam. John D. Yohannan.
In: Edward FitzGerald’s The Rubáiyat of Omar Khayyám. Ed. by H. Bloom. Philadelphia, Chelsea House, 2004. p. 5-19.
(From Review of National Literatures 2, no. 1.)

Yohannan describes how the Rubaiyat was recognised as “a disintegrating spiritual force in England and America” and how in the Omar Khayyam clubs the veneration for the translator tended to surpass worship of the poet.

Fugitive articulation: an introduction to The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

Fugitive articulation: an introduction to The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. D Schenker.
In: Edward FitzGerald’s The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Ed. by H. Bloom. Philadelphia, Chelsea House, 2004. p. 59-76.
(From Victorian Poetry 19, no. 1.)

Schenker takes an innovative and challenging look at the Rubaiyat, questioning why we fail today to respond to it as a work of serious literary art (p. 60). The author compares its effect on an audience with that of an “unimpeachable contemporary masterpiece, T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”. The Rubaiyat’s wide appeal might be that it “institutionalizes a cult of spiritual resignation” and that it is “sufficiently void of meaning to be recyclable in any number of contexts”. In his analysis of the poem, the author recognises its “verbal claustrophobia”.

Larger hopes and the new hedonism: Tennyson and FitzGerald

Larger hopes and the new hedonism: Tennyson and FitzGerald. Norman Page.
In: Edward FitzGerald’s The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Ed. by H. Bloom. Philadelphia, Chelsea House, 2004. p. 151-168.
(From Tennyson: Seven Essays, edited by Philip Collins. 1992 by The Macmillan Press Ltd.)

Page compares Tennyson’s In Memoriam with the almost contemporary Rubaiyat. The author’s analysis is that, even as he confronts the threats to faith posed by the new science (Darwin), Tennyson remains conservative and reassuring with the strength of his convictions, while the Rubaiyat, a fin-de-siecle poem “born before its time”, is uncompromisingly unorthodox and challenging with the power of its scepticism.