The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

by Omar Khayyam

Overview

Edward FitzGerald gave the title The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam to his translation of poetry attributed to the Persian poet, astronomer and mathematician Omar Khayyam (1048-1123). The word "Rubaiyat" means quatrains - verses of four lines. These works by Fitzgerald are the best known English translations. This edition contains both the first and fifth editions of the Rubaiyat. This influential translation is seen by many as a zenith of English literature in the nineteenth century. Fitzgerald states that his translation "will interest you from its form, and also in many respects in its detail: very unliteral as it is. Many quatrains are mashed together: and something lost, I doubt, of Omar's simplicity, which is so much a virtue in him." And, "I suppose very few People have ever taken such Pains in Translation as I have: though certainly not to be literal. But at all Cost, a Thing must live: with a transfusion of one's own worse Life if one can't retain the Original's better. Better a live Sparrow than a stuffed Eagle."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781412170604
Publisher:	eBooksLib
Publication date:	04/21/2010
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	83 KB

About the Author

Anthony Briggs, Emeritus Professor of Russian at Birmingham University, Senior Research Fellow at Bristol University, is a well-known writer and broadcaster on Russian cultural affairs and European poetry. His recent translation of WAR AND PEACE was critically acclaimed. Among his many publications are six editions in the Everyman poetry series.

Editorial Reviews

Fitzgerald compulsively revised his translation of the "Rub<'a>iy<'a>t," resulting in four published editions, all of which are presented here with their original prefaces and notes, along with all extant versions of FitzGerald's translation. Decker supplies biographical and textual introductions that make use of FitzGerald's correspondence to seek motives for his revisions, the aim being to to unearth a full record of the poem's textual evolution, to provide an interpretive context, and to illuminate the complex process of revision. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Booknews

an attractive new edition with a lengthy essay by Tony Briggs, who characterises the poem, memorably, as "the story of the apocalypse told to us by a kind uncle"—DAILY MAIL

a lovely new edition... Professor Briggs does us all a favour by putting before our red and weary eyes FitzGerald and this legacy from an older Iran.—Libby Purves, TIMES

From the Publisher