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Appendix: two early reviews of the Rubaiyat

Appendix: two early reviews of the Rubaiyat.
Victorian Poetry, 46 (2008), nr 1, p. 105-125.

For many years it was thought that the earliest criticism of the Rubaiyat to appear in print was a review of the second edition, published in the North American Review in 1869, by Charles Eliot Norton. In 1960, however, an earlier review, dating from just six months after the publication of the first edition, was rediscovered in The Literary Gazette, a London weekly. (See Michael Wolff, “The Rubaiyat’s Neglected Reviewer: A Centennial Recovery,” VN 17 (1960): 4-6.)

Selected bibliography of FitzGerald criticism, 1959-2008

Selected bibliography of FitzGerald criticism, 1959-2008.
Victorian Poetry, 46 (2008), nr 1, p. 15-17.

The list includes the major critical contributions of the last fifty years. It does not include notes or short articles, nor the many editions of FitzGerald’s work, several of which contain very useful critical introductions.

Nozhat al-Majales

Nozhat al-Majales. Moḥammad Amin Riahi.
Encyclopaedia Iranica Online, 2008

NOZHAT AL-MAJĀLES, an anthology of some 4,000 quatrains (robāʿi; a total of 4,139 quatrains, 54 of which have been repeated in the text) by some 300 poets of the 5th to 7th/11th-13th centuries, compiled around the middle of the 7th/13th century by the Persian poet Jamāl-al-Din Ḵalil Šarvāni. The book is arranged by subject in 17 chapters (bābs) divided into 96 different sections (namaṭ). The anthology also includes 179 quatrains and an ode (qaṣida) of 50 distiches written by the author himself, who is also credited with one lyric (ḡazal) in Moḥammad Jājarmi’s Moʾnes al-aḥrār.

The benefits of reading the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam as pastoral

The benefits of reading the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam as pastoral. Giuseppe Albano.
Victorian Poetry, 46 (2008), nr 1, p. 55-67.

On the publication of J. B. Nicolas’ French translations of Omar Khayyam –collected in book form as Les quatrains de Kheyam in 1867, having initially appeared in the Revue de l’Orient, de l’Algerie et des Colonies four years earlier–Edward FitzGerald was provoked into a caustic disagreement with its translator. The Frenchman held that Omar’s testaments to the benefits of drinking wine should not be taken literally, but should be seen in Sufi terms as representing an enlightened state of being.

A target-oriented approach to two different English translations of Omar Khayyam’s quatrains

A target-oriented approach to two different English translations of Omar Khayyam’s quatrains. Sayyed Mohammad Karimi Behbahani. Pune, University of Pune, 2008.

Summary

The present study is an attempt to read and compare two different English translations of Omar Khayyam’s Quatrains in the light of a Target-oriented Approach. The two selected translations are Edward Fitzgerald’s Translation and Peter Avery & John Heath- Stubbs’ Translation. The major intention beyond this research is to conduct a unified and comprehensive study of the mentioned translations based on Gideon Toury’s DTS (Descriptive Translation Studies). This research is composed in five chapters, an Introduction and an Appendix, a brief sketch of each is to be presented: In the Introduction, the researcher provides justifications for research, particularly Target- Oriented research, in Translation Studies. The emerging need for interdisciplinary studies in the English departments is also emphasized. The objectives and the methodology of the research are provided in the Introduction.