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Abandon the Day

Abandon the Day: FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. David Sonstroem
In: The Victorian Newsletter, 1969, no. 36, p. 11-14

EDWARD FITZGERALD’S Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam bravely offers its famous remedy, “A Book of Verses … / A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread-and Thou”, as triumphant insulation against the thought of eternal extinction. But this quatrain, like some other passages expressing optimism or satisfaction, is rather out of keeping with the rest of the poem, whose overall impression is of helpless, sodden pessimism and richly melancholic despair. The poem as a whole offers a suggestive departure from the carpe diem sentiments found in this quatrain, introducing the traditional motif only to belie it. By this means the poem achieves an especially poignant-and peculiarly Victorian-pathos.

Omar Khayyam: astronomer, mathematician and poet

Omar Khayyam: astronomer, mathematician and poet. John Andrew Boyle.
Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 52 (1969) 1, p. 30-45

General article investigating what is known about Khayyám, the years of his birth and death, his background, and the various manuscripts that have come to light in recent years.

The Persian Rubā’ī: Common Sense in Analysis

The Persian Rubā’ī: Common Sense in Analysis. Michael Craig Hillmann.
Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 119 (1969) 1, p. 98–101.

Comment on an article by G. L. Windfuhr, entitled “Die Struktur eines Robai” (ZDMG 1968, pp. 75- 8)

Die Struktur eines Robai

Die Struktur eines Robai. Gernot L. Windfuhr.
Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 118 (1969) 1, p. 75–78.

Die Begeisterung über die Robais von Omar Xayyam ist auch heute noch nicht erloschen. Es ist vor allem die durch Fitzgeralds Nach-dichtung betonte- und verzerrte -Melancholie, die die Aufmerksamkeit heutiger Iranisten auf die Klärung des Weltbildes dieses Dichters konzentriert. Im folgenden werde ich an einem frei gewählten Robai Omars aufzeigen, daß ein Robai nicht nur Inhalt hat sondern auch Form; daß beide sich bedingen, und daß sich der Inhalt gerade zu mechanisch und zwangsläufig aus der Formanalyse ergibt.

A comparative analysis of Edward Fitzgerald’s and Robert Graves’s translation of ‘The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam’

A comparative analysis of Edward Fitzgerald’s and Robert Graves’s translation of ‘The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam’. Bahram Meghdadi. Columbia University, 1969.

Summary:
Robert Graves’s publication of his own translation of Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat in November, 1967 triggered this study. Graves claims that Edward FitzGerald used spurious sources for his translation and that FitzGerald misinterpreted Khayyam’s basic philosophy.