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A Millennium of Persian Literature

OmarKhayyamThe Library of Congress opened an exhibition on March 29, titled “A Thousand Years of the Persian Book”. Purpose of the exibition is to take visitors on a visual journey of the rich literary history of Persian language, and to explore works of religion, science, modern literature, children’s books, women’s literature and the highly illustrated masterpieces of classical poetry for which Persian literature is most famous.

“The Moving Finger writes: and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it,” Khayyám wrote in “Rubaiyat,” a work that centuries later still would inspire artists from Eugene O’Neill to Agatha Christie, from Woody Guthrie to Van Morrison.

Read more in the Library of Congress Blog: http://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2014/03/a-millennium-of-persian-literature/?loclr=fbloc

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The Rubáiyát for students of Persian literature

AmouzgarCoverKuros Amouzgar, educated as an engineer and living in the USA, translated the Persian text of Furughi and Ghani’s edition of the Rubáiyát, to help his children’s generation enjoy their Persian literary heritage. These children of Iranians living outside their homeland, often lack knowledge and understanding of the Persian language and literature. Khayyám is one of the most famous and well known Persian poets and his verses are easier to comprehend and to translate than other Persian poets.
This edition has the Persian text as well as a transliteration into Latin, a literal translation and a selection of 39 quatrains from FitzGerald’s version. Also included are notes on the verses and a glossary of Persian words in the text.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam for students of Persian literature. 178 quatrains rendered phonetically in the original Persian and a literal English translation by Kuros Amouzgar. Bethesda, Ibex Publishers, 2012. 233 p. ISBN 978-1-58814-083-8.

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Secular pleasures

Victorian Poetry published a very interesting essay in their latest issue, by Ayşe Çelīkkol, titled ‘Secular Pleasures and FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám‘. Pleasure
The author starts from the point of view that FitzGerald’s poem “imagines a secular experience that resists the reign of reason. Musing on transcendental matters cannot help the speaker to make sense of his own existence, but neither can rational inquiry. (…) he relates to the material world around him by seeking and embracing pleasure. Through the senses of wonder, connectedness, and enchantment inspired by the self’s engagement with the natural world, FitzGerald transfers some of the most fulfilling aspects of religion onto a secular experience.”
The essays then goes on to demonstrate how this idea is an “articulation of  some of the insights that have come to inform the critical study of the secular today”.

Secular Pleasures and FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. By Ayşe Çelīkkol.
Victorian poetry, vol. 51 (2013), nr. 4, (winter), pp. 511-522.
DOI: 10.1353/vp.2013.0029 (Abstract, project MUSE)

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Khayyam exhibition in Tehran

Only a few days are left to hurry down to Tehran for an exhibition of calligraphy works of Khayyám’s poems  in the University of Tehran.  The collection which includes Khayyam Latin calligraphy was created by the Iranian calligrapher Mojtaba Karami who has vast experiences in the art. Some 30 works of the artist have been displayed at the exhibition, depicting some selected poems of Khayyam’s famous quatrains in ten different languages.

The exhibition started Sunday, February 16, and will run until February 19, at the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, University of Tehran.

From: Press TV, February 17, 2014

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A tribute to Omar

The tribute was organised by the Pakistan-Norway Association (PANA) on February 1, this year, with a buffet, a fruit drink and a lecture by a Central Asian expert on Khayyam and poet Prof. Aftab Kazi.

KhayyamQuatrains from Khayyam’s poetry were performed by Opera singer Lynly Butt and the film on the life and times of Khayyam “The Keeper — The Legend of Khayyam” was screened. However, in Professor Kazi´s view “the directors and producers commercialise and distort the history.”

Read more about the event in The Express Tribune of February 3, 2014.

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“Inspired by Poetry”

Dutch composer Sylvia Maessen composed a piece called ‘Omar Khayyam. Rubaiyat’ for soprano and six tuned wine glasses (2005). The work is now recorded on CD together with eight other works by Maessen. The songs are performed by Irene Maessen.
A presentation will be held in Amsterdam, February 23, 2014, in Arti & Amicitiae, starting at 17.00 pm.

Inspired by Poetry, as the CD is called, contains a number of songs, based on texts by a number of Dutch poets, and by Rutebeuf, Khlebnikov and Tullia d’Aragona, in a variety of musical settings.
‘Omar Khayyam. Rubaiyat’ is made up of nine quatrains from FitzGerald’s translation. The singer also ‘plays’ the wine glasses by passing a moist finger along the rim of the glasses.
With the CD comes a booklet, with additional information and the text of the poems.

A fragment from the work is available at Maessen’s website. Recently Professor Rokus de Groot, (University of Amsterdam), held a lecture ‘Khayyam in de Nederlandse muziek‘ (available from YouTube), in which he explored some of the musical aspects of the composition.

 

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Two critical essays

VCUsiteA somewhat peculiar website is: The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, from Virginia Commonwealth University (Richmond, Virginia), that offers the Rubáiyát texts, (1st, 2nd and 4th renderings), a glossary, a bibliographical list, a short biography of Khayyám, a comparison between a number of quatrains by FitzGerald, the Persian text and a literal translation, and the introductions to the three editions.

Also there are two critical essays “Creating Another’s Work: Edward FitzGerald’s The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. A bibliographical essay” by Katie Elliott, and “FitzGerald’s second. Additions and Textual Changes in the 1868 Edition of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam” by Thomas Minnick. You’ll find these in the Criticism chapter.

The website is presented in the form of a book, with various illustrations from a number of artists. Unfortunately there is no year of publication, but it is from a later date than 2002.