Voice in Khayyam’s Rubaiyat and FitzGerald’s English translation

Voice in Khayyam’s Rubaiyat and FitzGerald’s English translation. Saeedeh Bisayar; Mahdi Safari; Mousaahmadian
International journal of English language, literature and translation studies, 2 (2015) 1, pp. 114–124.

This study attempted to examine the concept of “voice” in Khayyam’s Rubaiyat compared with Fitzgerald’s English translation through investigating the extent of ideological changes Fitzgerald applied in his paraphrase and through analysis of the existing voice in every selected quatrain of Khayyam’s Rubaiyat. For this purpose, six Persian quatrains by Khayyam have been selected randomly and their equivalences have been traced in the first edition of the translation of Rubaiyat by Fitzgerald.

Veiling the Mystic in the Hedonist’s Gear: A Comparative Rereading of Omar Khayyam’s The Rubaiyat …

Veiling the Mystic in the Hedonist’s Gear: A Comparative Rereading of Omar Khayyam’s The Rubaiyat and Harivansh Rai Bachchan’s Madhuśālā. Prasun Banerjee.
The Contour, 1 (2015) 4 (April), pp. 14-21.

Despite the conspicuous mystic perspectives, the recognition of the Rubaiyat to the Western literary discourse has essentially been as a hedonist poem celebrating the paganistic wine-intoxicated revelry and joys of earthly life and that of Omar Khayyam as the poet of the sharab (wine), saki (wine-girl) and peyala(wine-pot). But a careful scrutiny of the Persian and oriental tradition of poetry would reveal that the Rubaiyat is fraught with poetic devices that indicate at established Sufistic discourses in Khayyam’s verses, almost akin to the poets like Rumi, Hafeez or Ferdowsi.

Omar FitzGerald’s Rubaiyat. A panacea for Victorian era

Omar FitzGerald’s Rubaiyat. A panacea for Victorian era. Mahdi Baghfalaki; Zeinab Mahmoudibaha.
New Academia: An International Journal of English Language, Literature and Literary Theory, 4 (2015) 1, pp. 92–98.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, often called ―the single best-selling book of poetry ever to appear in English‖, was an outlet relief for Victorian era and a source of inspiration for the major Victorian poets as well. Why should this be so? Why should an obscure dilettante’s translation of the quatrains of a minor Persian poet have gone more or less straight to the reading public’s heart and stayed there for a hundred years or so? This paper is an attempt to analyze the reasons beyond the success of Edward Fitzgerald‘s The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyamin Victorian era.

The erring finger writes. The Leicester pirate cyclostyles of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

The erring finger writes. The Leicester pirate cyclostyles of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Jos Coumans & John Drew. Cambridge, Cambridge Poetry Workshop, 2015. 43 pp. ISBN: 9781871214260.

Summary:

This document tells the story of Holyoak’s cyclostyle editions of the Rubáiyát, the interference by Macmillans who saw the work of the simple Leicester book seller as a threat to their business, and the response by W.H. Holyoak and G.J. Holyoake. The booklet also shows documents and descriptions of the various versions of Holyoak’s printings.

The Cinderella of the Arts

The Cinderella of the Arts. Rob Shepherd. London and New Castle, DE: Shepherds and Oak Knoll Press, 2015. 200 pp. ISBN: 9781584563402.

Sumary:

Shepherds bookbinders, in co-operation with Oak Knoll Press, recently published The Cinderella of the Arts. A short history of Sangorski & Sutcliffe, a London bookbinding firm established in 1901. It is a successor to Bob Shepherds book Lost on the Titanic (2001), and this new edition draws a wider perspective of the firm’s history, including the dramatic story of the second ‘Great Omar’. The history also highlights the Sutcliffe years and the years that Stanley Bray was in command. It is illustrated with colourfull images of some of the finest bindings, and with photographs of the people of the firm.

Edward FitzGerald and the Rediscovery of Omar Khayyám for Persian Nihilism

Edward FitzGerald and the Rediscovery of Omar Khayyám for Persian Nihilism
In: Persophilia : Persian Culture on the Global Scene. Hamid Dabashi. Cambridge (MA), Harvard University Press, [2015]. 297 pp. ISBN: 9780674495777.

Summary:
From antiquity to the Enlightenment, Persian culture has been integral to European history. Interest in all things Persian shaped not just Western views but the self-image of Iranians to the present day. Hamid Dabashi maps the changing geography of these connections, showing that traffic in ideas about Persia did not travel on a one-way street.

The Hunter Rubáiyát: illustrating Edward FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam in an contemporary Australian setting

The Hunter Rubáiyát: illustrating Edward FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam in an contemporary Australian setting. Tallulah Cunningham. Newcastle, University of Newcastle, 2015.

Summary

Edward FitzGerald’s poem Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám has been illustrated over a hundred and fifty times during the decade and a half since its first publication. These illustrations have depicted exotic, arcadian other-places that ignore the poem’s frequent endorsement to live with immediacy. My Practice-based Creative PhD project has focused on producing a visual interpretation that reflects the immediate landscapes of my own physical situation: modern Australia. I have crafted illustrations that use the current landscapes and biotic content of the Hunter Valley, NSW, to emphasise not only the ongoing relevance of this poem to the brevity of human life but also my interpretations of the poem. To describe the poem’s frequent references to the passage of time I have drawn on my experience as a Natural History Illustrator, integrating the cycle of seasonal climatic events, plant and animal behaviour into my visual interpretation. I have also inverted the existing trend of exotic illustrations in a familiar physical context (that of a book) by presenting my depiction of the familiar, local environments in two exotic formats. These formats are based on Japanese narrative-scrolls and woodblock prints, providing unusual and intentionally tactile creative objects.