THE RUBAIYAT

Ommar Khayyam

The Rubiyt of Omar Khayym is the title that Edward FitzGerald gave to his translation of a selection of poems, originally written in Persian and of which there are about a thousand, attributed to Omar Khayym (1048 1131),aPersian poet, mathematician and astronomer.
A ruba'i is a two-line stanza with two parts (or hemistichs) per line, hence the word rubiyt (derived from the Arabic language root for "four"), meaning "quatrains".

Perhaps the most famous of FitzGerald's verses is this one:

Quatrain XI in his 1st edition: 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 now. Quatrain XII in his 5th edition: "A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread--and Thou Beside me singing in the Wilderness-Oh, Wilderness were Paradise now!"

Other Languages:
Many Russian language translations have been undertaken, reflecting the popularity of the Rubaiyat in Russia since the late 19th century and the increasingly popular tradition of using it for the purposes of bibliomancy. Eric Hermelin translated the Rubaiyat into Swedish in 1928. Thomas Ifor Rees produced a Welsh translation, published in Mexico City in 1939. Thirunalloor Karunakaran translated the Rubaiyat into Malayalam in 1989. Duvvoori Ramireddy translated the Rubaiyat into Telugu in 1935. Maithili Sharan Gupt and Harivanshrai Bachchan translated the book into Hindi in 1959. Kantichandra Ghosh, Muhammad Shahidullah (in 1942), Kazi Nazrul Islam (in 1958) H Thng Tuy translated from English into Vietnamese (from FitzGeralds 1st edition) in 1990.

Influences of Rubaiyat:
Like Shakespeare's works, Omar Khayym's verses have provided later authors with quotations to use as titles: The title of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe novel Some Buried Caesar comes from one of the Tentmaker's quatrains (FitzGerald's XVIII), for example. Eugene O'Neill's drama Ah, Wilderness! derives its title from the first quoted quatrain above. Agatha Christie used The Moving Finger as a story title, as did Stephen King. See also And Having Writ. Lan Wright used Dawn's Left Hand as the title of a science fiction story serialized in New Worlds Science Fiction (JanuaryMarch 1963). Equally noteworthy are these works likewise influenced: The British composer Granville Bantock produced a choral setting of FitzGerald's translation 1906-1909.

Sources of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

There is no direct evidence that Omar Khayyam was the author of any of the quatrains attributed to him. There are no original manuscripts of the Rubaiyat extant and no evidence from his contemporaries, or in the years immediately following his death, of poetic activities by Khayyam. Edward FitzGerald gleaned his words initially from one of the earliest known manuscripts, namely that in the Sir William Ouseley collection in the Bodleian library in Oxford. This contains 158 quatrains and is dated 1460/61; it was thus put together over 300 years after the death of Omar Khayyam.

Criticism
Plot and Major Character
FitzGerald's Rubiyt spans one day, from dawn until dusk. As morning breaks, the narrator of the poem is contemplative. He reflects upon the transience of all things, and contemplates man's inability to comprehend or influence destiny, but finds enjoyment in the material pleasures of life. The narrator, continuing to brood, is moved to anger by thoughts of the indifference of God, imagining that life is like a chess game in which people are mere pawns of destiny, with God looking on but not caring about the outcome of the game. As the day progresses into evening, the narrator associates his fading youth and eventual death with the approach of darkness.

Major Themes
In the Rubiyt, the sequence of a day acts as a metaphor for the passage of time. The poem extols the hedonistic pleasures of food, sex, and wine, and the importance of living for today, because the future is uncertain and life is fleeting. It contemplates the riddle of life and expresses mankind's doubts, regrets, and fears. Written during a time of religious upheavalits first edition was published the same year as Darwin's Origin of Speciesthe poem's questioning of religion and traditional morality was both shocking and fascinating to its readers.

Brief Summary
Omar Khayyam (1048-c.1131) He was a famous Persian mathematician, astronomer and philosopher, He lived in the 11/12th centuries and worked at the court in Eastern Iran. Many verses (four line quatrains or rubai) have been attributed to him but it is not clear how many of these he actually composed. One of the earliest established collections of quatrains dates from 1461. This Ouseley manuscript, in the Bodleian Library in Oxford, was used by FitzGerald in his translation. Edward FitzGerald (1809-1883) Edward FitzGerald was a wealthy Victorian gentleman of letters who lived most of his life in Suffolk, in and around Woodbridge. A chance meeting with a local young man named Edward Cowell (later a Professor at Cambridge) set FitzGerald on to his Persian studies. Cowell discovered the Ouseley manuscript of Khayyams Rubaiyat in the Bodleian Library, and sent a copy to FitzGerald. This, together with another larger manuscript from Calcutta, provided FitzGerald with the basis for his Rubaiyat.

FitzGeralds Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

FitzGeralds Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam was first published in 1859. It contained 75 quatrains, and was an interpretation not a literal translation of the verses attributed to Khayyam. After an initial failure, FitzGeralds Rubaiyat became ever more popular, at first in Britain, then in the United States and then in the rest of the world. The Rubaiyat has been translated into over 70 different languages to become the most widely known poem in the world. A new edition has been published almost every year since the 1880s. As well as being a beautiful poem, the philosophy of the Rubaiyat seems to have appealed to many people over the years.

FitzGeralds Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is still probably the best known poem in the world. It has influenced millions of readers and writers. It deserved a special celebration.

2009 The year of the Rubaiyat This was an occasion to celebrate Edward FitzGeralds Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam in the year that marked.