The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Penned by: Omar Khayyam As translated by: Edward Fitzgerald Discussant: Salirick Andres

Objectives:
Understand key concepts surrounding the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam as translated by Edward Fitzgerald. Get to know important details about The Rubaiyat, Omar Khayyam, and Edward Fitzgerald. Appreciate the works literary value as it relates to ones life.

Omar Khayyam

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Omar Khayyam
Born in 1048 A.D. Ghiyath al-Din Abu'l-Fath 'Umar ibn Ibrahim Al-Nishapuri al-Khayyami. a Persian polymath, philosopher, mathematician, astronomer and a poet. He also wrote treatises on mechanics, geography, mineralogy, music, climatology and theology.

Omar Khayyam
He is believed to have written about a thousand four-line verses or rubaiyat (quatrains). In the English-speaking world, he was introduced through the Rubiyt of Omar Khayym which are rather free-wheeling English translations by Edward FitzGerald (18091883). Ironically, FitzGerald's translations reintroduced Khayym to Iranians "who had long ignored the Neishapouri poet."

Omar Khayyam
A 1934 book by one of Iran's most prominent writers, Sadeq Hedayat, Songs of Khayyam, (Taranehha-ye Khayyam) is said to have "shaped the way a generation of Iranians viewed" the poet. Khayym's personal beliefs are not known with certainty, but much is discernible from his poetic oeuvre.

Edward Fitzgerald (1809-1893)

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Edward Fitzgerald (1809-1893)

Edward Marlborough Fitzgerald. English writer and poet. The first to translate Omar Khayyams The Rubaiyat, and considered to be the best. He was born Edward Purcell but changed his name to Fitzgerald when a rich aunt chose him to inherit her vast riches. He studied at Cambridge University and took interest inOriental Literature.

Edward Fitzgerald (1809-1893)

The original material (Rubaiyat) was obtained from Cowell from an Asiatic Society in Calcutta. On 15 January 1859, a little anonymous pamphlet was published as The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Unsuccesful at first, the world become fascinated of it that Fitzgerald made 5 Editions of it.

Edward Fitzgerald (1809-1893)

FitzGerald translated many of Khayym's quatrains and combined them into a single work. But he also added his own insights and couched the quatrains in his own style. Some critics maintain that the poetic quality of FitzGerald's finished product exceeded that of Khayym's original quatrains. In other words, Khayym supplied the lumber, and FitzGerald built the house

The Rubaiyat
Rubi is a Farsi word for quatrain, a four-line poetry stanza. The plural of rubi is rubiyt. Thus, a literal English rendering of the title of this famous poem is The Quatrains of Omar Khayym. Farsi is the language that has been spoken in Iran since the 9th century AD. It is written using Arabic characters.

The Rubaiyat
The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is popularly regarded as one of the most famous poem sequences in world literature It has been translated into English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Chinese, Hindi, Arabic, Swahili and many other languages numbering up to around 70+ languages and still growing.

The Rubaiyat
The Rubaiyat usually have a specific metre and rhyming scheme; It was written using iambic pentameter line and it utilized the rhyme scheme AABA while in Fitzgeralds translations, we can see AAAA rhyme schemes.

The Rubaiyat
Stanza 1 Rhyme Scheme: AABA Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight: And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught The Sultan's Turret in a Noose of Light.

The Rubaiyat
Stanza 10 Rhyme Scheme: AAAA With me along some Strip of Herbage strown That just divides the desert from the sown, Where name of Slave and Sultan scarce is known, And pity Sultan Mahmud on his Throne.

The Rubaiyat
In Persian literature, a quatrain or rubai is generally accepted as being complete in itself, a form of epigram expressing a thought or idea. A quatrain should not normally have any relationship to other rubai in the Rubaiyat, and, in principle, individual lines, phrases, or words in the quatrain are only components of the whole verse.

The Rubaiyat
1 AWAKE ! for Morning in the Bowl of Night Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight: And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught The Sultan's Turret in a Noose of Light. 11 Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough, A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse - and Thou Beside me singing in the Wilderness And Wilderness is Paradise endow.

The Rubaiyat
27 Myself when young did eagerly frequent Doctor and Saint, and heard great Argument About it and about: but evermore Came out by the same Door as in I went. 49 'Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays: Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays, And one by one back in the Closet lays.

The Rubaiyat
50 The Ball no Question makes of Ayes and Noes, But Right or Left as strikes the Player goes; And He that toss'd Thee down into the Field, He knows about it all - HE knows - HE knows ! 51 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.

The Rubaiyat
60 And, strange to tell, among that Earthen Lot Some could articulate, while others not: And suddenly one more impatient criedWho is the Potter, pray, and who the Pot ? 73 Ah Love ! could thou and I with Fate conspire To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire, Would not we shatter it to bits - and then Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire

Common Themes
carpe diem The poet, who refers to himself as "old Khayym," is unable to commit himself to belief in an afterlife. Consequently, he believes in living for today: Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend, Before we too into the Dust Descend; Dust into Dust, and under Dust, to lie, Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer andsans End!

Common Themes
fate Pervading the poem is a sense of helplessness against forces beyond the control of man. The universe, time, and of course fate will have their way no matter what man does to counteract their power. 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.