Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám
ISBN13: 9780199542970ISBN10: 019954297X
Hardback,
224 pages
Also available:
Paperback
Jan 2009,
In Stock
Price:
$29.95 (01)See more from the series
Description
In 1859, Edward FitzGerald translated into English the short, epigrammatic poems (or "rubaiyat") of medieval Persian poet Omar Khayyam. If not a true translation--his Omar seems to have read Shakespeare and the King James Bible--the poem nevertheless conveyed some of the most beautiful and haunting images in English poetry, and some of the sharpest-edged. By the end of the century, it was one of the best-known poems in the English language, admired by Swinburne and Ruskin. Daniel Karlin's richly annotated edition focuses on the poem as a work of Victorian literary art, doing justice to the scope and complexity of FitzGerald's lyrical meditation on "human death and fate." Karlin provides a fascinating critical introduction which documents the poem's treatment of its Persian sources, along with its multiple affiliations with English and Classical literature and to the Bible. A selection of contemporary reviews offers an insight into the poem's early reception, including the first attack on its status as a translation.About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
Features
- This splendid edition of FitzGerald's famous version of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám celebrates the poem as a work of Victorian literary art, which rose from obscurity to become the poem that contains some of the most quoted lines in English poetry.
- Reproduces the first 1859 edition of this much-revised poem and documents the changes made in subsequent editions as well as providing a table of corresponding stanzas.
- Daniel Karlin's wide-ranging introduction discusses FitzGerald's treatment of his Persian sources and theory of translation, his life and the circumstances of the poem's composition and revisions, its relation to the Orientalist tradition, Victorian literature and the Victorian context.
- Explanatory notes include selective details of the relation between the English version and its Persian original, as well as information about literary and historical sources and allusions, and relevant biographical episodes.
- A selection of contemporary reviews offers an insight into the poem's early reception, including the first attack on its status as a 'translation'; a further appendix reprints Tennyson's affectionate and moving poem 'To E. FitzGerald' - a poem begun as a dedication and ended as an elegy.
About the Author(s)
Daniel Karlin is Professor of English at the University of Sheffield. His books include Proust's English and Browning's Hatreds.
