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Orientalism translated – Omar Khayyam through Persian, English and Hindi

Orientalism translated – Omar Khayyam through Persian, English and Hindi. Harish Trivedi.
In: Colonial transactions. English literature in India. Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1995., p. 29-52.

The Khayyam texts assembled in this essay constitute a partial but significant narrative of the formation of the modem Indian identity not only in terms of a Perso-Indian response to a Perso-Anglian poetic construct, but also in terms of the constantly shifting grounds of the linguistic basis of that response. The progress of Khayyam from Persian not initially into Hindi but into English into Hindi into English-English into Indian-English not only reflects closely the linguistic-cultural evolution of modem India from c. 1780 to 1989: it also provides a complex ‘oriëntalist’ sub-text of our colonial and post-colonial condition over this period.

Khaiyâmî

Khaiyâmî. F. de Blois.
In: Persian literature. Vol. 5, part 2. London, The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ire, 1994, p. 356-380.

Biographical and bibliographical survey of Khayyám’s life, works and the study and translations of his rubáiyát.

Love and wine in Khayyam and Hafez

Love and wine in Khayyam and Hafez. R. Foltz.
In: Persian studies in North America. Studies in honor of Mohammed Ali Jazayery. Ed. by M. Marashi. Bethesda, Iranbooks, 1994. p. 417-421.

Both Omar Khayyam and Hafez of Shiraz are known for writing about wine and love, yet the use of similar images by the two poets belies a great difference in content. This should not be surprising, since beyond the fact that their lives were separated by were separated by three centuries, the two men differed vastly in nature as well as circumstance.

‘Umar Khayyám

‘Umar Khayyám. Ch.-D. de Fouchécour.
In: Encyclopedia of Islam. New. ed. 1994. Vol. 10, p. 827-831.

Al-Imām Abū Ḥafṣ ʿUmar b. Ibrāhīm al-Ḵh̲ayyāmī is thus named in the Mīzān al-ḥikma which ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Ḵh̲āzinī composed in 515/1121, often mentioning Ḵh̲ayyām for his scientific works. Abū Ḥafṣ is a kunya customarily associated with the name ʿUmar, and al-Ḵh̲ayyāmī is the form which would be expected in an Arabic work.

The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Jeremy Parrott.
Book and Magazine Collector (1997) nr. 163 p. 40-52.

Edward FitzGerald’s famous translation of the poem has been issued in many collectable editions

The Epicurean Humanism of Omar Khayyam

The Epicurean Humanism of Omar Khayyam. Pat Duffy Hutcheon.
Humanist in Canada, 1998 (Spring), p. 22-25, 29.

Summary

The man who was to keep the torch of scientific humanism alight within early Islamic civilization was born a thousand years after the death of Lucretius, and into a vastly different cultural setting. Nevertheless, in all that Omar Khayyam wrote one can clearly recognize the influence of the great Roman poet, and of the naturalistic Epicureanism that he celebrated. This is doubly remarkable when we recall that, during the centuries between Lucretius and Khayyam, a Dark Age had engulfed and stifled Western Europe. The spread of a mystical form of religion throughout the remnants of the Roman empire, combined with the influence of the Germanic tribes, had gradually produced what amounted to a reversion to barbarism. Gullibility and ignorance pervaded life at all levels, while economic activity declined to primitive levels of barter. An attitude of contempt for earthly existence and bodily pleasures had become the norm, along with belief in all manner of superstition and magic.

Bernard Quaritch as an antiquarian bookseller

Bernard Quaritch as an antiquarian bookseller. E. Glasgow.
Library review 47 (1998) nr. 1, p. 38-41.

Summary

This is a brief study of the life and work of the celebrated antiquarian bookseller Bernard Quaritch (1819‐1899). Born in Germany and having served his apprenticeship as a bookseller there, he came to London in 1842 with a letter of introduction to John Murray. After a short period in Paris he finally settled in London in 1845, setting up his own business there in 1845. This flourished and in his Victorian heyday Quaritch had an international fame, priding himself on being bookseller to many “eminent Victorians”. In 1859 he was also first to venture to publish Edward Fitzgerald’s somewhat daring “Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam”. Quaritch had a firm and lasting influence on books and literature of his time. Apart from his enormous influence on private libraries he helped decisively to build up the collections of the British Museum and of the H.C. Folger Library in the USA. He illustrates how the book trade in Victorian England made its own forceful contributions to the advancement of literature, learning and libraries of all sorts.