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Omar’s Rubaiyat

Omar’s Rubaiyat. [Translated by Edward FitzGerald]. [S.l.] : Wolf, 2023.  12 cm.

Pack of 75 playing cards, illustrated with Sullivan’s images and the 75 quatrains from FitzGerald’s first edition. Together with a little booklet with instructions how to use the cards as tarot cards.

Shaaban Robert’s Swahili Rubáiyát and Its Reckonings

Shaaban Robert’s Swahili Rubáiyát and Its Reckonings. Annmarie Drury
In: Modern Philology 121 (2023) 2, p. 169-191

Abstract

Shaaban Robert’s Swahili poem Omar Khayyam kwa Kiswahili (Omar Khayyam in Swahili) (1952), translated from Edward FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam (1859), provides a study in the reach and transformation of British literature of the nineteenth century and in the significance of translation within a colonial sphere. Robert (1909–1962), a major Swahili author, was employed by the colonial service for all his working life, and in terms of his receipt of FitzGerald’s poem and the very language he used, the Standard Swahili created by the British colonial state, his translation was imbricated in a colonial context. He exercised significant creative agency as translator, plumbing FitzGerald’s poem for underlying elements of Khayyám’s Persian and translating FitzGerald’s rendering of Khayyám to highlight affiliations between Khayyám and Swahili poetic tradition. At the inception of Robert’s translating of FitzGerald lay a troubling experience of dislocation that resonates with FitzGerald’s creation of his translation and the reception of that poem and that helps us understand the affective associations belonging to Omar Khayyam kwa Kiswahili. Thus, Robert nurtured the cosmopolitan connections of Swahili poetry while creating for Standard Swahili—a variety of Swahili with little poetry to call its own—a poem bearing a sense of poetic tradition.

Translation after the Persianate?

Translation after the Persianate? Omar Khayyam and Late Perso-Ottoman Poetic Connectivity. Mehtap Ozdemir
In: Philological Encounters (2023), p. 1-28

This article focuses on late Ottoman/Turkish translations of Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat (“quatrains”) as part of Perso-Ottoman poetic connectivity in the early twentieth century. Situating the reception of Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat at the nexus of world literature, literary historiography, and translatability, the article explores the methodological affordances of translation to redress the overdominance of discursive and historical points of rupture in studies of late Persianate literatures. To that end, the article offers a comparative reading of Hüseyin Daniş’s Rubaiyat-ı Ömer Hayyam (1927), Rıza Tevfik’s Ömer Hayyam ve Rubaileri (1945), both of which are based on their co-authored translation in 1922, and Mevlevi Mustafa Rüşdi b. Mehmet Tevfik’s translation of Khayyam’s quatrains (1931–32). By way of specific attention to translation as hermeneutics, this article suggests that translating after the Persianate did not involve a straight shift from regional translation practices to translation proper nor was it exclusively a modus operandi of literary and linguistic nationalism. In drawing attention to how translation can accommodate both synchronic and diachronic mobility, the article therefore calls for alternative comparative methodologies which attend to persistent textual practices as well as conjunctural discourses in literary history.

Edward FitzGerald’s „Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám“ and Related Materials

Edward FitzGerald’s „Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám“ and Related Materials. The John Roger Paas Collection. Edited by John Roger Paas. Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz Verlag, 2023. 1184 pages, 3 parts. Part 1+2: Text, XXII, 872 pages; Part 3: Plates, 312 pages. ISBN 9783447120906

Contents
Foreword IX
Introduction XIII
Explanatory Notes XVII
Abbreviations & Symbols XIX
PART I: Versions of the Rubáiyát
I FitzGerald’s Versions (nos. 1-4348) 3
II Manuscripts and Illuminated Leaves (nos. 4349-4367) 562
III The Rubáiyát in Anthologies (nos. 4368-4460) 565
IV Recordings of the Rubáiyát (nos. 4461-4544) 570
V English Translations other than by FitzGerald (nos. 4545-4708) 578
VI Multilingual Editions (nos. 4709-4796) 605
VII Translations in Languages other than English (nos. 4797-4918) 626
PART II: References to the Rubáiyát
I Novels and Biographical Narratives about Omar and/or the Rubáiyát (nos. 4219-4936) 649
II Books and Articles about the Rubáiyát (nos. 4937-5036) 652
III Works and Verses about FitzGerald and/or Omar Khayyám (nos. 5037-5123) 661
IV Bibliographies of the Rubáiyát and Works about Artists, Editors, etc. (nos. 5124-5251) 670
V Publishers’ Catalogs Prospectuses, and Advertisements (nos. 5252-5307) 679
VI The Word “Rubáiyát” in Titles (nos. 5308-5366) 684
VII Titles Inspired by Verses in the Rubáiyát (nos. 5367-5395) 688
VIII Works with References to the Rubáiyát or Omar Khayyám (nos. 5396-5415) 691
IX Quatrains in the Rubáiyát quoted (nos. 5416-5452) 693
X Verse Founded on, or in the Meter of, the Rubáiyát (nos. 5453-5581) 696
XI Calendars (nos. 5582-5633) 710
PART III: The Rubáiyát in Popular Culture
I Stage, Screen, and Radio (nos. 5634-5715) 721
II Musical Scores and Sheet Music (nos. 5716-5782) 734
III Parodies and Spin-offs in Books and Magazines (nos. 5783-5985) 740
IV Omar Khayyám Clubs (nos. 5986-6043) 761
V Advertisements (nos. 6044-6272) 766
VI The Names/Words “Omar” and “Rubáiyát” used non-commercially (nos. 6273-6325) 778
VII Greeting Cards, Postcards, and Stamps (nos. 6326-6383) 782
VIII Artwork (nos. 6384-6546) 787
IX Realia (nos. 6547-6757) 798
X Related Materials (nos. 6758-6826) 811
Part IV: Related FitzGerald Items
Letters and other Works (nos. 6827-6861) 819
Indexes
Artists 825
Editors, Compilers, Commentators, and Contributors 829
Authors of related Works, Bibliographers, and Composers/Songwriters 833
Translators 837
Printers 839
Fine Binders 842
Early Association Copies 843
Concordance (Potter / Paas) 844