To date, more than 11,000 books have been written about Omar Khayyam's life, poetry, philosophy, and contributions to mathematics and astronomy. His Rubaiyat (stanzas of four quatrains or lines) has charmed tens of millions of hearts around the world and is among the most read of all time. Khayyam has been appropriately called the poet of destiny. What makes his work fascinating is the realization that he, unlike most poets of his era, was not a fatalist. In fact, accepting his philosophy and heeding his advice means shifting focus from the external, be it mystical or sensual, to the internal and arriving at that the ultimate truth that in life all that matters is love and joy; all else is fantasy and fallacy. Although Khayyam has been known to the scientific community for centuries, he shot into fame in the western world only after publication of Edward FitzGerald's (1809-1883) translation of Rubaiyats/Rubais in Victorian England. This book presents poem-to-poem translations of some of Khayyam's popular Rubaiyat to English- both literally and conceptually. The translations follow the style of the original poems. It also includes some of the translator's/author's own poems inspired by Khayyam.
The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam by Edward Fitzgerald do it; the result was the Jalali era (so called from Jalal-ud-din, one of the king's names)--'a computation of time, ' says Gibbon, 'which surpasses the Julian, and approaches the accuracy of the Gregorian style.' He is also the author of some astronomical tables, entitled 'Ziji-Malikshahi, ' and the French have lately republished and translated an Arabic Treatise of his on Algebra. "His Takhallus or poetical name (Khayyam) signifies a Tent-maker, and he is said to have at one time exercised that trade, perhaps before Nizam-ul-Mulk's generosity raised him to independence. Many Persian poets similarly derive their names from their occupations; thus we have Attar, 'a druggist, ' Assar, 'an oil presser, ' etc. Omar himself alludes to his name in the following whimsical lines: -- "'Khayyam, who stitched the tents of science, Has fallen in grief's furnace and been suddenly burned; The shears of Fate have cut the tent ropes of his life, And the broker of Hope has sold him for We are delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive Classic Library collection. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. The aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir of literature, and our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. The contents of the vast majority of titles in the Classic Library have been scanned from the original works. To ensure a high quality product, each title has been meticulously hand curated by our staff. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with a book that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic work, and that for you it becomes an enriching experience.
The poems attributed to Omar Khayyam have a universal and timeless philosophical theme: life is a meaningful journey even if brief and uncertain. They inspire an unconstrained free-thinking mindset and a wise realization that guides thinking persons: it is impossible to see the absolute truth, as the universe has its own reality that remains largely hidden, and that one must think and act accordingly. This book presents a selection of Khayyam's poems in their original Persian language along with their English translations in a faithful and modern version. By relying only on the original Persian version of Khayyam's poems, and using the author's own body of literary and linguistic knowledge, this book presents a modern translation of Omar Khayyam's poems since Edward Fitzgerald's Rubaiyat in 1859.
Philosopher, astronomer and mathematician, Khayyam as a poet possesses a singular originality. His poetry is richly charged with evocative power and offers a view of life characteristic of his stormy times, with striking relevance to the present day. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Omar Khayyam’s Secret: Hermeneutics of the Robaiyat in Quantum Sociological Imagination, by Mohammad H. Tamdgidi, is a twelve-book series of which this book is the seventh volume, subtitled Khayyami Art: The Art of Poetic Secrecy for a Lasting Existence: Tracing the Robaiyat in Nowrooznameh, Isfahan’s North Dome, and Other Poems of Omar Khayyam, and Solving the Riddle of His Robaiyat Attributability. Each book, independently readable, can be best understood as a part of the whole series. In Book 7, Tamdgidi shares his updated edition of Khayyam’s Persian book Nowrooznameh (The Book on Nowrooz), and for the first time his new English translation of it, followed by his analysis of its text. He then visits recent findings about the possible contribution of Khayyam to the design of Isfahan’s North Dome. Next, he shares the texts, and his new Persian (where needed) and English translations and analyses of Khayyam’s other Arabic and Persian poems. Finally he studies the debates about the attributability of the Robaiyat to Omar Khayyam. Tamdgidi verifiably shows that Nowrooznameh is a book written by Khayyam, arguing that its unreasonable and unjustifiable neglect has prevented Khayyami studies from answering important questions about Khayyam’s life, works, and his times. Nowrooznameh is primarily a work in literary art, rather than in science, tasked not with reporting on past truths but with creating new truths in the spirit of Khayyam’s conceptualist view of reality. Iran in fact owes the continuity of its ancient calendar month names to the way Khayyam artfully recast their meanings in the book in order to prevent their being dismissed (given their Zoroastrian roots) during the Islamic solar calendar reform underway under his invited direction. The book also sheds light on the mysterious function of Isfahan’s North Dome as a space, revealing it as having been to serve, as part of an observatory complex, for the annual Nowrooz celebrations and leap-year declarations of the new calendar. The North Dome, to whose design Khayyam verifiably contributed and in fact bears symbols of his unitary view of a world created for happiness by God, marks where the world's most accurate solar calendar of the time was calculated. It deserves to be named after Omar Khayyam (not Taj ol-Molk) and declared as a cultural world heritage site. Nowrooznameh is also a pioneer in the prince-guidance books genre that anticipated the likes of Machiavelli’s The Prince by centuries, the difference being that Khayyam’s purpose was to inculcate his Iranian and Islamic love for justice and the pursuit of happiness in the young successors of Soltan Malekshah. Iran is famed for its ways of converting its invaders into its own culture, and Nowrooznameh offers a textbook example for how it was done by Khayyam. Most significantly, however, Nowrooznameh offers by way of its intricately multilayered meanings the mediating link between Khayyam’s philosophical, theological, and scientific works, and his Robaiyat, showing through metaphorical clues of his beautiful prose how his poetry collection could bring lasting spiritual existence to its poet posthumously. Khayyam’s other Arabic and Persian poems also provide significant clues about the origins, the nature, and the purpose of the Robaiyat as his lifelong project and magnum opus. Tamdgidi argues that the thesis of Khayyam’s Robaiyat as a secretive artwork of quatrains organized in an intended reasoning order as a ‘book of life’ serving to bring about his lasting spiritual existence can solve the manifold puzzles contributing to the riddle of his Robaiyat attributability. He posits, and in the forthcoming volumes of this series will demonstrate, that the lost quatrains comprising the original collection of Robaiyat have become extant over the centuries, such that we can now reconstruct, by way of solving their 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle, the collection as it was meant to be read as an ode of interrelated quatrains by Omar Khayyam. Table of Contents: About OKCIR--i Published to Date in the Series--ii About this Book--iv About the Author--viii Notes on Transliteration--xix Acknowledgments--xxi Preface to Book 7: Recap from Prior Books of the Series-1 Introduction to Book 7: Tracing the Robaiyat in Omar Khayyam’s Artwork--11 CHAPTER I--Omar Khayyam’s Literary Work “Nowrooznameh”: An Updated Persian Text and Its New English Translation for the First Time--21 CHAPTER II-- Omar Khayyam’s Literary Work “Nowrooznameh”: A Clause-by-Clause Textual Analysis--147 CHAPTER III--Unveiling the Open and Hidden Functions of the Mysterious North Dome of Isfahan: How Omar Khayyam Designed, for His Commissioned Projects of Solar Calendar Reform and Building Its Astronomical Observatory, Iran’s Most Beautiful Dual-Use Structure for the Annual Celebration of Nowrooz--367 CHAPTER IV--Omar Khayyam’s Arabic and Persian Poems Other than His Robaiyat: Translated into Persian (from Arabic) and English and Textually Analyzed--497 CHAPTER V--Did Omar Khayyam Secretively Author A Robaiyat Collection He Called “Book of Life”?: Solving the Manifold Riddles of His Robaiyat Attributability--573 Conclusion to Book 7: Summary of Findings--677 Appendix: Transliteration System and Glossary--731 Cumulative Glossary of Transliterations (Books 1-5)--744 Book 7 References--753 Book 7 Index--767
For all its fame in the wider world, Edward FitzGerald's 'Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám' (1859) has been largely ignored by the academic establishment. This volume explores the reasons for both its popularity and neglect.
This wide-ranging Companion provides a vital overview of modern Chinese literature in different geopolitical areas, from the 1840s to now. It reviews major accomplishments of Chinese literary scholarship published in Chinese and English and brings attention to previously neglected, important areas. Offers the most thorough and concise coverage of modern Chinese literature to date, drawing attention to previously neglected areas such as late Qing, Sinophone, and ethnic minority literature Several chapters explore literature in relation to Sinophone geopolitics, regional culture, urban culture, visual culture, print media, and new media The introduction and two chapters furnish overviews of the institutional development of modern Chinese literature in Chinese and English scholarship since the mid-twentieth century Contributions from leading literary scholars in mainland China and Hong Kong add their voices to international scholarship
'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.' In the 'rubáiyát' (short epigrammatic poems) of the medieval Persian poet, mathematician, and philosopher Omar Khayyám, Edward FitzGerald saw an unflinching challenge to the illusions and consolations of mankind in every age. His version of Omar is neither a translation nor an independent poem; sceptical of divine providence and insistent on the pleasure of the passing moment, its 'Orientalism' offers FitzGerald a powerful and distinctive voice, in whose accents a whole Victorian generation comes to life. Although the poem's vision is bleak, it is conveyed in some of the most beautiful and haunting images in English poetry - and some of the sharpest- edged. The poem sold no copies at all on its first appearance in 1859, yet when it was 'discovered' two years later its first admirers included Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Swinburne, and Ruskin. Daniel Karlin's richly annotated edition does justice to the scope and complexity of FitzGerald's lyrical meditation on 'human death and fate'. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range 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, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
