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‘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.

Common and queer: syntax and sexuality in the Rubáiyát

Common and queer: syntax and sexuality in the Rubáiyát. Erik Gray.
In: FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Popularity and Neglect. Cambridge, Anthem Press, 2011. pp. 27–44.

Gray contends that FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát originally achieved its giddy popularity because it seemed so strange and daring, yet the poem’s very familiarity has tended to obscure what is most exceptional about it, its often puzzling language and its depiction of relations between men.