Death Deemed Undead. The Fragility of Life and the Theme of Mortality and Melancholia In Omar Khayyam’s ‘Rubaiyat’

Death Deemed Undead. The Fragility of Life and the Theme of Mortality and Melancholia In Omar Khayyam’s ‘Rubaiyat’. Abhik Maiti.
American Research Journal on English and Literature. [2018, in Press]

Summary

he term “Vairagya” refers to a deeply ruminative cynicism arising out of wisdom, knowledge and awareness about the ways of the world especially its perplexing transience and man’s search for meaning in the grand scheme of things. No other topic engenders as much vairagic thinking as does the imponderability of life’s purpose, its relevance and meaning. The manifestation of this thinking can be seen in prose tracts, poetry, schools of philosophy, expositions, sayings and aphorisms. Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat belongs to this manifestation. With death as the final and unyielding reality it was but natural for Omar Khayyam to bring out the perplexing nature of human existence and passions there in for questioning in his rubai.

Translation and optical media: spirit-channeling in Edward FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

Translation and optical media: spirit-channeling in Edward FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Karin Littau
In: Amodern 8, 2018.

Summary

This essays gives a snapshot of the mid-Victorian period to address the ways in which Edward FitzGerald, wittingly or unwittingly, co-opted optical media into his translational practice and theory. His stance on translation – like that of his contemporary Dante Gabriel Rossetti – while imbued with older cultural beliefs and practices, such as the transmigration of spirits and souls, is also strikingly contemporary when it comes to one of the key media technologies of his age: the magic lantern. The focus on these little noticed connections between translation and optical media is intended as a step towards a more comprehensive media history of translation that pays attention to translation not only in the familiar contexts of oral and written cultures, but also in visual and screen cultures.

Inhoud …

A translation quality assessment of two English translations of Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam based on Juliane House’s Model (1997)

A translation quality assessment of two English translations of Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam based on Juliane House’s Model (1997). Sonia Ghafouripour; Razieh Eslamieh
International Journal of English language & translation studies, 6 (2018) 2, pp. 217–226

Summary

Translation Quality Assessment (TQA) is a fast-growing sub-field of Translation Studies. It focuses on the relationship between the texts translated from ST into TT. This study applied House’s (1997) TQA model to English translations of Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, in order to evaluate the quality of these translations. It was found out that both translators have successfully translated Khayyam’s poetry. However, the first translation by Saeed Saeedpour (2012) has fewer errors (68 errors) in comparison with second translation (95 errors) by Edward Fitzgerald (1859), as a conclusion, ST native speaker could master the implications better, so he could translate better than the TT native speakers.

Sufi symbolism in Tolib Shakhidi’s televised ballet The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Sufi symbolism in Tolib Shakhidi’s televised ballet The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Marina N. Drozhzhina, Sitora D. Davlatova
Music Scholarship, 2018, Nr. 1, pp. 66-73

Summary

In the article devoted to one of the most well-known compositions by the Tajik composer Tolib Shakhidi the means of reflection of Sufi symbolism in the synthetic genre of the televised ballet are researched. Stemming from the essential parameters of the symbol (taking into account the formed traditions of study of this category), the authors propose their own perspective of the issue. The role of the symbol is shown in expounding by artistic means of the Sufi path of perfection (Tarikat) as a bridge between the two worlds. The orientation on the multilevel complex of sets (musical, scenographic, choreographical, scenic or poetical) and the specificity of the chief Sufi principle of zohirbotin (the inner vs. the outer) made it possible to carry out the analysis of the indicated phenomenon on the basis of a differentiated approach toward symbol.

Edmund Dulac’s Book Graphics and the Problem of Orientalism in British Illustration of Edwardian Era and the Second Decade of XXth Century

Edmund Dulac’s Book Graphics and the Problem of Orientalism in British Illustration of Edwardian Era and the Second Decade of XXth Century. Dmitry Lebedev.
In: Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Art Studies: Science, Experience, Education. Atlantis Press, November 2019.

Summary

At the turn of the XIX-XX centuries, Europe-wide enthusiasm about the Eastern art, which varied from Iranian miniature to Japanese engraving, led to the popularity of many artists whose works were impacted by Orientalism. In these circumstances, large London publishers, annually producing luxury gift books for Christmas, trying to adjust to the mass excitement around the Eastern art, invited young and promising graphic artists to illustrate these publications. Among the invited artists who actively cooperated with such publishers was the outstanding French-English illustrator Edmund Dulac (1882-1953). The article reveals one of the key aspects of Dulac’s oeuvre. The author considers artist’s attempts to convey the thematic and stylistic originality of the Oriental art in the context of book illustration of the Edwardian era and the second decade of XXth century. The work traces Edmund Dulac’s creative career and examines the cycles of his illustrations in order to identify both typical and original stylistic and compositional techniques used by the author to create works in the spirit of orientalist aesthetics. The article also deals with oriental works of Dulac’s contemporaries and analyses them in comparison with each other.

Study of Socratic Irony and Romantic Irony in Khayyam, Abol-ala and Schopenhauer’s Quatrains

Study of Socratic Irony and Romantic Irony in Khayyam, Abol-ala and Schopenhauer’s Quatrains. Ahmad Forouzanfar, Shahla Khalilollahi, Maryam Mousavi.
In: International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature, Sept. 2019. Pp. 72-76.

Summary:
In this article we are determined to review Socratic irony, romantic and ironic structures of Khayyam’s quatrains and the ones attributed to him and explain the place of Khayyam as an ironist among other thinkers of the world, according to the meaning of romantic irony and Socratic irony in his quatrains.

“Bois du vin …”. English, French and German translations in Persian polyglot editions of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

“Bois du vin …”. English, French and German translations in Persian polyglot editions of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Jos Coumans.
In: Persica, 2017-2018, Vol. 26, p. 103-163.

Summary

Many recent editions of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, published in Iran, have more than one translation, sometimes up to thirty or more. Usually they contain the English translation by Edward FitzGerald, accompanied by a text in Persian and translations in French, German, Spanish, Russian, Urdu and so on. However, it is seldom clear who these translators are, as their names are usually not mentioned. In this article I have tried to identify these quatrains: who was the translator and from which edition were the quatrains selected. Nineteen editions, published in Iran between 1955 and 2016 were examined. The analyses are restricted to translations in English, French and German.