Omar Khayyam. - Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

RUBIYT OF OMAR KHAYYM

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Editorial material Daniel Karlin 2009

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This edition first published 2009

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Data available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Omar Khayyam.
[Rubaiyat. English]
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam / [translated by] Edward FitzGerald;
edited by Daniel Karlin.
p. cm.(Oxford World Classics)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 9780199542970
I. FitzGerald, Edward, 18091883. II. Karlin, Daniel, 1953- III. Title.
PK6513.A1 2009
891.5511dc22
2008036653

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ISBN 9780199542970

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THE focus of this edition is on the poem that Edward FitzGerald called Rubiyt of Omar Khayym, not on the authentic original rubiyat (plural of rubi, a short epigrammatic poem) of Omar ibn Ibrahim al-Khayyam (10481131)assuming these could be identified. I have not commented on questions of attribution at all, and cannot comment on questions of accuracy, except at second-hand. Nevertheless it is essential to have some knowledge of FitzGeralds Persian texts; here I have relied mainly on the versions of A. J. Arberry, whose flavour is a bit archaic to modern taste but who is (as far as I can judge) properly literal in that he does not introduce figures of speech which are not in the original, or at least does not do so without explanation. I have also consulted the older versions of Edward Heron-Allen (about whom Arberry is sometimes unnecessarily sharp) and I have looked at other modern versions, of which the best (to my laymans mind) is that by Peter Avery and John Heath- Stubbs, which repeats in some measure the collaboration between a scholar of Persian and an English poet from which our Rubiyt was born. I have benefited from the work of other editors, critics, and biographers, even where I have disagreed with their conclusions or emphases. I owe a particular debt to work by Peter Avery, Dick Davis, Christopher Decker, Erik Gray, Robert Bernard Martin, and Alfred McKinley Terhune, FitzGeralds biographer and (with Annabelle Burdick Terhune) the editor of his letters.

I am grateful to staff at the British Library, Cambridge University Library, and the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge, and to Professor Adrian Poole, for facilitating my research. Samantha Matthews compiled the Chronology and gave me, as always, invaluable help and advice at every stage.

My work in this book is dedicated to my son, Ben Karlin, and my daughter, Katie OShea.