Archives

Implications of Mystic Intoxication in Chinese and Iranian Poetry

Implications of Mystic Intoxication in Chinese and Iranian Poetry. R. Weston.
The Undergraduate Historical Journey, 1 (2014) 1, pp. 5-9.

In analyzing the works of Chinese Tang poet Li Bo (701-762),1 one notices the reoccurring reference to “drunkenness” or drinking of wine; though it can be taken at face value to represent a state of being in the literal sense—that is, what appears to be an intoxicated stupor—it seems more practical to consider a more figurative meaning. Namely, it is possible to interpret themes of wine and drunkenness as allegories for spiritual enlightenment, be it found in nature or simply life in general.

Khayyam, Omar vi. As mathematician

Khayyam, Omar vi. As mathematician. B. Vahabzadeh.
Encyclopaedia Iranica Online, May 2014.

Three mathematical treatises of Omar Khayyam have come down to us: (1) a commentary on Euclid’s Elements; (2) an essay on the division of the quadrant of a circle; (3) a treatise on algebra; and (4) the treatise on the extraction of the nth root of the numbers, which is not extant.

FitzGerald’s Anglo-Persian Rubáiyát

FitzGerald’s Anglo-Persian Rubáiyát. R. Taher-Kermani.
Translation and Literature, 23 (2014), nr. 3 (324-335)

This article examines Edward FitzGerald’s translation practice and the poetics of his Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (1859) in order to to enrich and supplement previous critiques. FitzGerald succeeded in ‘Persianising’ his re-writing of the rubáiyát by importing matter of peculiar Persian significance. In order to identify it, his translation of Khayyám needs to be read with, so to speak, a Persian eye; it has to be scrutinized as a native critic would read and analyse the poetry of, for example, Hāfiz. This is the fundamental approach of this essay.

Edward FitzGerald’s The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Edward FitzGerald’s The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Dick Sullivan.
The Victorian Webb (2014)

We’re lucky to have FitzGerald’s The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam at all. It was by chance that he met Edward Cowell, one of the few Victorians who spoke Persian, and who was friendly enough to help him. (FitzGerald was no linguist.) It was by chance also that Cowell discovered an Omar Khayyam manuscript in the Bodleian (FitzGerald had tried to stop him going to Oxford).

FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám: Critical Celebrations of a Beloved Poem

FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám: Critical Celebrations of a Beloved Poem. E. Nakjavani.
Iranian Studies, 47 (2014), nr. 4, pp. 627-648.

Erik Nakjavani reviews and discusses two recent volumes on the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. The first is ‘Edward FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám: A Famous Poem and its Influence’, by William H. Martin and Sandra Mason (Anthem Press, 2011). The reviewer discusses this work in respect of contemporary views about reception and assessment of poetry, by enthusiasts and devotees as well as scholars and academics. The second volume is ‘Edward FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám: Popularity and Neglect’, edited by Adrian Poole, Christine van Ruymbeke, William H. Martin, and Sandra Mason (Anthem Press, 2011), in which he summarizes and discusses the separate essays.

Balkan Rubaiyat. The post-Ottoman polysystem between East and West

Balkan Rubaiyat. The post-Ottoman polysystem between East and West. R. Mueller.
Paper, online available at Academia.edu, June 2014.

In the Balkans, two important national thinkers produced their own Rubaiyat translations. In 1920, Safvet-Beg Bašağić (1870-1934), Oriental scholar and father of Muslim nationalism in Bosnia, published the first translation of the acclaimed Rubaiyat in a South Slavic language. In 1926, Theofan Stylian Noli (1882-1965), ordained Orthodox priest, national intellectual and once-Prime Minister of Albania, published the first Albanian-language version of the Rubaiyat. What are we to make of the temporal and geographical convergence of these individuals and their text, their parallel projects of making a behemoth of modern world literature—itself situated in an unstable place between East and West—available to audiences in a newly post-Ottoman sphere?

Complete graphs in the Rubáiyát

Complete graphs in the Rubáiyát. D.P. May.
Journal of mathematics and the arts, 8 (2014), nrs. 1-2, p. 59-67.

The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám has fascinated readers for centuries, and it has been translated and interpreted many times. In this paper, we will describe a few basic graph theory concepts, and discuss how graph theory can be used to explore the connections between the various quatrains contained in Edward FitzGerald’s several translations of the Rubáiyát. We will explain the process of searching for certain complete subgraphs of the full graph of the Rubáiyát, and will briefly discuss how these ideas may be relevant in other areas. These applications include analysing other collections of poetry, teaching certain types of incidence geometry and poetic forms for composing short collections of poetry.

Omar Khayyám (1040/62 -1131/32) y la filosofía árabe

Omar Khayyám (1040/62 -1131/32) y la filosofía árabe. Martín González Fernández.
Revista Española de Filosofía Medieval, 21 (2014), pp. 119-130.

This article analyzes the figure of Omar Khayyam (Nîsâbur, Persia, ca. 1040/62, – ca. 1131/32, Nîsâbur) by looking at his famous quatrains or rubayat, focusing on the reception and review of the Arab philosophies of his time, and the defense that he makes of Persian Archaic, Zoroastrian, Mazdean and Manichean culture and philosophy.

Woestijn waar ik dit paradijs aan dank – Claes vertaalt FitzGerald vertaalt Chajjaam

Woestijn waar ik dit paradijs aan dank – Claes vertaalt FitzGerald vertaalt Chajjaam. B. Crucifix.
Filter 21 (2014) 2, p. 7-19.

Paul Claes is a notorious Flemish translator, most famous for his translations of classic and modernist texts; but he is also a novelist and a poet, a critic and a scholar. This article examines how translation and writing interconnects in Claes’s translations and pastiche of Edward FitzGerald’s (free) translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Because of a cultural difference in legal status and representation, translating and writing are often considered to be strictly separate activities, establishing a hierarchical distinction between ‘creative’ and ‘derivative’ modes.

Khayyam, Omar vii. Translations into Italian

Khayyam, Omar vii. Translations into Italian. Casari, Mario.
Encyclopaedia Iranica Online, May 2014.

The reception of Khayyam’s poetic work in Italy, as in the rest of Europe, was the result of the translation and rewriting of the English poet Edward FitzGerald (d. 1883) in the years 1859-79. In Italy the more scholarly approach to Khayyam’s work by a few dedicated Iranists proceeded at a fitful pace over many decades.