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A Victorian poem: Edward FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

A Victorian poem: Edward FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. C. Wilmer.
In: FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Popularity and neglect. Ed. by A. Poole et al. London, Anthem Press, 2011. pp. 45-54.

By looking at the Rubáiyát’s context Wilmer tries to answer the question how FitzGerald was able – through Persian lyrics of the Middle Ages – to speak to his contemporaries. First thing to be said is that Khayyám’s sceptical and more or less hedonistic view of the world belongs, as filtered through FitzGerald, to the era in which Darwin – in most respects as modest and retiring a man as FitzGerald – was dismantling old certainties.

Common and queer: syntax and sexuality in the Rubáiyát

Common and queer: syntax and sexuality in the Rubáiyát. Erik Gray.
In: FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Popularity and Neglect. Cambridge, Anthem Press, 2011. pp. 27–44.

Gray contends that FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát originally achieved its giddy popularity because it seemed so strange and daring, yet the poem’s very familiarity has tended to obscure what is most exceptional about it, its often puzzling language and its depiction of relations between men.

Much ado about nothing in the Rubáiyát

Much ado about nothing in the Rubáiyát. D. Karlin.
In: FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Popularity and neglect. Ed. by A. Poole et al. London, Anthem Press, 2011. pp. 115-26.

Karlin probes the metaphysical gap between FitzGerald’s idea of ‘nothing’ and Tennyson’s, tracing the antecedents of the former in an English literary tradition that includes Shakespeare, Donne, and Rochester.

Edward FitzGerald, Omar Khayyám and the tradition of verse translation into English

Edward FitzGerald, Omar Khayyám and the tradition of verse translation into English. D. Davis.
In: FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Popularity and neglect. Ed. by A. Poole et al. London, Anthem Press, 2011. pp. 1-14.

Davis places FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát within the tradition of English verse translation as it has existed since the time of Chaucer. He suggests that FitzGerald was doing something relatively unprecedented when he wrote his versions of Khayyám, and that, together with the uncertain status of the original poems within the canon of Persian poetry, this was a prime factor in his work’s extraordinary success.

FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát: popularity and neglect

FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát: popularity and neglect. A. Poole.
In: FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Popularity and neglect. Ed. by A. Poole et al. London, Anthem Press, 2011. pp. XVII-XXVI.

Introductory essay.

Omar Khayyam: much more than a poet

Omar Khayyam: much more than a poet. Robert Green.
Montgomery College Student Journal of Science and Mathematics 1 (2002) (Sept.)

Omar Khayyam, although well known for his poetry, was also an accomplished mathematician, scientist, astronomer, and philosopher. In fact, his contributions include the Jaláli Calendar, astronomical tables, and contributions to mathematics, especially in Algebra. He wrote, “Maqalat fi al-Jabr al-Muqabila,” in this area of mathematics, which many claim provided great advancement in the field.