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The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. I.B.H. Jewett.
In: Edward FitzGerald’s The Rubáiyat of Omar Khayyám. Ed. by H. Bloom. Philadelphia, Chelsea House, 2004. p. 21-58.
(From Edward FitzGerald. © 1977 by G.K. Hall & Co.)

Jewett pinpoints interesting moments in the correspondence between Fitzgerald and his mentor, Cowell, comparing their versions of the same Khayyam quatrain, thus illustrating “dramatically the difference between translation and creation”. The importance Fitzgerald attached to his earlier translation of Jami’s Salaman and Absal is also touched upon. Fitzgerald emphatic stipulation that Omar never be published without Salaman was apparently disregarded after his death. The article further gives a brief treatment of the problem of the Persian quatrains’ authenticity and of Khayyam’s possible authorship and possible mysticism.

Paradise enow

Paradise enow. John Hollander.
In: Edward FitzGerald’s The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Ed. by H. Bloom. Philadelphia, Chelsea House, 2004. p. 185-194.
(From Yale Review 86, nr. 3 July 1998)

Hollander looks at paraphrases and satires inspired by the Rubaiyat and at editions and illustrations of the work.

Forgetting FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát

Forgetting FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát. Erik Gray.
In: Edward FitzGerald’s The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Ed. by H. Bloom. Philadelphia, Chelsea House, 2004. p. 209-226.
(From SEL 41 (2001), nr. 4 (Autumn), p. 765-793.)

Gray argues that critics seem to have taken Fitzgerald at his word, who constantly advises in the Rubaiyat to ‘forget’. After a brief discussion of Tennyson’s poetry (also very concerned with the question of memory), Gray moves to examine the formal means Fitzgerald uses to efface his poem from the reader’s memory. Considering the poem’s publication history, the author suggests that “readers have never forgotten the Rubaiyat paradoxically because they are unable to remember it precisely”. “The poem is forgetful, or at least absent-minded, at every level: the rendition of the Persian, the rhymes, the quatrains, the different editions – all simultaneously recollect and efface dead selves.”

Bernard Quaritch and ‘My Omar’ – The struggle for FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát

Bernard Quaritch and ‘My Omar’ – The struggle for FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát. Arthur Freeman.
In: Edward FitzGerald’s The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Ed. by H. Bloom. Philadelphia, Chelsea House, 2004. p. 169-183.
(From The Book Collector, special issue. 1997)

As a publisher, Bernard Quaritch’s principal claim to memory lies in his association with Edward FitzGerald. Quaritch’s imprint appears on the first four editions of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. His instrumentality in popularising The Rubaiyat was well recognised in its time. The publication history of The Rubaiyat is narrated.

Edward Fitzgerald and Other Men’s Flowers: Allusion in the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Edward Fitzgerald and Other Men’s Flowers: Allusion in the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Christopher Decker.
Literary Imagination 6 (2004) 2, pp. 213-239.

One of the most arresting images called to mind in Edward FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám is that of the corpus redivivum, the buried corpse that turns to flowers gently in the grave. The body’s separate members suffer a metamorphosis into other objects that recompose and recollect their bygone looks. Khayyám reflects: I sometimes think that never blows so red The Rose as where some buried Cæsar bled; That every Hyacinth the Garden wears Dropt in its Lap from some once lovely Head. (XVIII)

William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones and ‘The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám’

William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones and ‘The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám’. Michaela Braesel.
Apollo (2004), (February)

Braesel discusses the manuscript designs by the British artists William Morris (1834-96) and Edward Burne-Jones (1893-98) for The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám which was translated in 1859 by Edward Fitzgerald. The author notes that two copies of the manuscript can be differentiated by Burne-Jones’s involvement in the designs, details Morris’s biographer Mackail’s account of the colour scheme adopted for the patterns in the manuscript, and compares the second version of the `Ynglings’ manuscript with patterns on the London manuscript for The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. She notes Morris’s interest in designs featuring female musicians, traces the history of the small manuscript format, and examines Morris and Burne-Jones’s reasons for avoiding illustrating the dramatic segments of the text.