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Robert Graves’s Mythopoetic Hospitality

Robert Graves’s Mythopoetic Hospitality. Sara Greaves
In: HAL Open Science, 2023

This article draws on poetry criticism, translation studies and, briefly, hospitality studies to revisit the controversial translation of The Rubaiyyat of Omar Khayyam by Robert Graves and Omar Ali-Shah. Graves took an interest in Sufism, especially as a ‘force of mental power which could be created by telepathic communication’ and worked together with the Shah brothers to dislodge Fitzgerald’s nineteenth-century best-selling version and replace it with what was intended to be a founding text of twentieth-century Western Sufism, a ‘secondary original’. Nevertheless, the poet polymath had his own agenda, an act of mythopoetic hospitality that the controversy should not be allowed to overshadow.

Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam in the interpretation of the Russian scientist Z.N. Vorozheykina

Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam in the interpretation of the Russian scientist Z.N. Vorozheykina. Sultanova Zulkhumor Sabatullaevna
In: ANGLISTICUM. Journal of the Association-Institute for English Language and American Studies, Vol. 12 (2023), 11 (November), p. 27-33

In this article, Z.N.Vorozheykina, first of all, paid attention to the socio-ethical events that were the focus of the poet’s attention, and in this context, analyzed the meaning and ideological essence of the poet’s rubai, and in the article “Umar Khayyom and Khayyom’s rubai” first Khayyom indicates the sources that informed him as a poet. In particular, he mentions the testimonies of “Khayyam’s younger contemporary, historian Abulhasan Bayhaqi”, Arabic-speaking historian Kifti, Arabic-speaking jurist Najmuddin Razi about “Khayyam’s Arabic poems and his Persian rubai”. This scientist singles out Khayyam’s poetry in the rubai genre and considers “the main content of his poems to be philosophical and joyous lyrics.” In this context, analyzing Khayyam’s Rubaiyat based on a mental approach, he comes to the conclusion that it is a “great idea”. Taking into account the personality of the poet Khayyam, that is, the confirmation of the right of every person living on earth to live happily, allows us to consider Khayyam the greatest humanist of the past,” he says (45, 13). From this point of view, the researcher analyzes samples from Khayyam’s Rubaiyat. and shows its essence and main approaches of thought. Segregation of Khayyam’s work into the world of topics, identification of ideological directions, recognition and evaluation of Khayyam’s work, the merits of this orientalist are very great. Omar Khayyam’s biography occupies a special place in Russian oriental studies. In the scientific works devoted to the study of this topic, issues such as his birthplace, social status, date and place of birth, personal and family life, and his relationship with his contemporaries were evaluated from different angles.

Review of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam

Review of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam: A New Translation from the Persian based on the edition of Mahmud Yerbudaki with a historical epilogue by Juan Cole (London / New York: I.B. Tauris, 2020). A.A. Seyed-Gohrab
In: Bibliotheca Orientalis, Vol. LXXX, No. 1-2, p. 187-189

Taking an Interest

Taking an Interest
In: Bubb (Ed.) 2023 – Asian Classics on the Victorian.  Flights of Translation. Oxford : Oxford U niversity Press, 2023. Pp. 33-62. ISBN: 9780198866275.

This chapter explains why nineteenth-century readers with no specialist or professional commitment to Asian languages and literatures began to take an interest in oriental translations, an interest that can be observed to grow steadily over the course of the century. It proposes four main ‘growth factors’: a climate of religious tolerance and ecumenism, increased opportunities for travel to Asia, imperial consciousness, and concerns surrounding decadence and the perceived cultural decline of the West. It is then shown how each of these factors contributes to the phenomenal popularity of the Rubaiyat of the Persian poet, Omar Khayyam, in a variety of translations between 1880 and 1920. Finally, the chapter defines some of the limits of Victorian cosmopolitanism, beyond which readerly curiosity or sympathy did not readily extend.

A Coleção Rubáiyát

A Coleção Rubáiyát. Denise Bottmann
In: Cadernos de Tradução, vol. 43 (2023) 1

This article draws a sketch of the so-called Coleção Rubáiyát, published by Livraria José Olympio Editora since 1943 through 1961, presenting its previous roots in another series of books, and a complete list of its published works, as well as a brief iconography with some cover images.

Omar Chajjam Freiheit und Skepsis

Omar Chajjam Freiheit und Skepsis Die Aktualität der Lebens- und Existenzphilosophie eines persischen Unversalgenies. Javid Kazemi. Norderstedt : Books on Demand, 2023. – 249 p. ; 22 cm. – ISBN: 9783758309861

180 quatrains in German, organized in 9 chapters.

Contents

Vorwort (1)
Erster Teil. Lebensweg (5)
Zweiter Teil. Chajjam als Dichter (11)
Dritter Teil. Chajjams magisch-philosophische Dichtung (27)
Vierter Teil. Das Rubaijat (101)
Anhang. Anmerkungen und Erläuterungen (153)