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The vogue of the English Rubáiyát and dedicatory poems in honour of Khayyám and FitzGerald

The vogue of the English Rubáiyát and dedicatory poems in honour of Khayyám and FitzGerald. P. Loloi.
In: FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Popularity and neglect. Ed. by A. Poole et al. London, Anthem Press, 2011. pp. 213-231.

Since the publication of Swinburne’s ‘Laus Veneris’ in 1866, there have been thousands of poems whose existence would have been impossible without the example of FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát. For convenience of discussion (and, of course, only a small proportion of this material can be examined), these poetic materials are considered under three headings: parodies, imitations and dedicatory poems.

‘Some for the glories of the sole’: the Rubáiyát and FitzGerald’s sceptical American parodists

‘Some for the glories of the sole’: the Rubáiyát and FitzGerald’s sceptical American parodists. A.S. Drury.
In: FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Popularity and neglect. Ed. by A. Poole et al. London, Anthem Press, 2011. pp. 193-212.

Drury sees in American parodies of the Rubáiyát a critique of the uncomplicated celebration of cultural fusion that many of FitzGerald’s champions promulgated. Her examples include the different uses of the Rubáiyát made by Mark Twain, Oliver Herford, and the ‘Hoosier poet’ James Whitcomb Riley.

Le Gallienne’s paraphrase and the limits of translation

Le Gallienne’s paraphrase and the limits of translation. A. Talib.
In: FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Popularity and neglect. Ed. by A. Poole et al. London, Anthem Press, 2011. pp. 175-192.

Talib shows that Richard Le Gallienne’s 1897 edition of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám is an original work of literature that helps us understand the contemporary tensions surrounding academic and commercial translation and the place of the Rubáiyát in English literary history.

The imagined elites of the Omar Khayyám Club

The imagined elites of the Omar Khayyám Club. Michelle Kaiserlian.
In: FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Popularity and neglect. Ed. by A. Poole et al. London, Anthem Press, 2011. pp. 147-174.

This study begins with a brief description of the role of elite men’s clubs in late- and post-Victorian society. In the first section, ‘Claiming the Rubáiyát’, Kaiserlian shows how members of the London Club distinguished themselves from outsiders through their exclusive knowledge and appreciation of the poem. ‘FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát & The Pilgrimage of the Rose’ analyses one of the Club’s early ceremonies, revealing imperialist metaphors at work in their worship of the Persian poem and its English translator. ‘Ordering Omar’s World’ investigates Clubbists’ regard for Khayyám as bastion of ‘the good life’ and their use of the poem’s Eastern context as a springboard for exotic indulgences. In the final section, ‘Containing the Rubáiyát’, she demonstrates how Clubbists’ privileged activities as collectors and publishers and their extraordinary objects both reflected their desire to contain the poem’s influence and maintain its status for themselves.

‘Under Omar’s subtle spell’: American Reprint Publishers and the Omar Craze

‘Under Omar’s subtle spell’: American Reprint Publishers and the Omar Craze. J.R. Paas.
In: FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Popularity and neglect. Ed. by A. Poole et al. London, Anthem Press, 2011. pp. 127-146.

By 1900 a cult of sorts with Omar and FitzGerald as the focus existed on both sides of the Atlantic, but what has yet to be clarified is the seminal role that American reprint publishers played as they first responded to the public’s interest in the Rubáiyát and then contributed to the spread of the cult. These enterprising publishers offered the public a range of inexpensive reprint editions of FitzGerald’s poem and in the process developed clever marketing strategies that continue to this day. The impact which they had on the cultural acceptance of the Rubáiyát cannot be overestimated, and the purpose of this essay is to shed light on how this happened.

Edward Heron-Allen: a polymath’s approach to FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

Edward Heron-Allen: a polymath’s approach to FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. G. Garrard.
In: FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Popularity and neglect. Ed. by A. Poole et al. London, Anthem Press, 2011. pp. 109-126.

Garrard focuses on the fascinating polymath Edward Heron-Allen and his close engagement with FitzGerald’s work in the 1890s.

The second (1862 pirate) edition of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

The second (1862 pirate) edition of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. J. Drew.
In: FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Popularity and neglect. Ed. by A. Poole et al. London, Anthem Press, 2011. pp. 93-107.

Drew focuses on Whitley Stokes, Edward Cowell and Thomas Evans Bell, and the intriguing story behind the Madras 1862 edition.

The similar lives and different destinies of Thomas Gray, Edward FitzGerald and A.E. Housman

The similar lives and different destinies of Thomas Gray, Edward FitzGerald and A.E. Housman. A. Briggs.
In: FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Popularity and neglect. Ed. by A. Poole et al. London, Anthem Press, 2011. pp. 73-92.

Briggs considers the arresting similarities and instructive differences between FitzGerald and two other retiring poets whose modest poetic output has won an exceptional popularity, Thomas Gray and A. E. Housman.

FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát and agnosticism

FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát and agnosticism. Marta Simidchieva.
In: FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Popularity and neglect. Ed. by A. Poole et al. London, Anthem Press, 2011. pp. 55-72.

The author tries to find a possible answer to Pound’s question about the success of FitzGerald’s translation. She puts the first two editions of the Rubáiyát in the intellectual context of the times, in an attempt to discover how the Persian transplants ‘correlate with the [host] system’. She contends that the poetic persona of the Persian sage, and the agnostic overlay which FitzGerald created through his choices as an editor and interpreter of the Khayyámic legacy, were as instrumental in ensuring the worldwide fame of the Rubáiyát as FitzGerald’s prowess as a translator.

A Victorian poem: Edward FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

A Victorian poem: Edward FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. C. Wilmer.
In: FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Popularity and neglect. Ed. by A. Poole et al. London, Anthem Press, 2011. pp. 45-54.

By looking at the Rubáiyát’s context Wilmer tries to answer the question how FitzGerald was able – through Persian lyrics of the Middle Ages – to speak to his contemporaries. First thing to be said is that Khayyám’s sceptical and more or less hedonistic view of the world belongs, as filtered through FitzGerald, to the era in which Darwin – in most respects as modest and retiring a man as FitzGerald – was dismantling old certainties.