Poetry:
Rubáiyát manuscripts (The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, 1859; Edward FitzGerald, translator)
Most of what is known about Omar Khayyám (OH-mahr ki-YAHM) lies half buried in the fog of history. His dates of birth and death are at best good estimates, for no indisputable evidence has been found. Some question even Omar’s reputation as a poet, as none of his contemporaries speak of his poetry, and his poems began to appear in print only after his death. Furthermore, the volume of poems attributed to Omar grew steadily from around sixty in the fourteenth century to collections of as many as one thousand poems in the seventeenth century. As Ali Dashti has summarized, by the middle of the twentieth century, more than twenty-two hundred poems had been attributed to Omar. Questions of authenticity, therefore, have been raised about these poems, especially after they have been filtered through various translations.
However, Omar Khayyám holds an indisputable place in world literature. While some of the details of his life may remain obscure, his historicity is certain, and his role as a poet is well established. According to Ali Dashti, Omar’s birth name was Ghiyasoddin Abolfath Omar bin Ebrahim Khayyami. He was born in the city of Nishapur, in the province of Khorassan in northeast Persia, now part of modern-day Iran. Omar was well-educated, and he excelled in the sciences of geometry and astronomy as well as algebra. His writings about these mathematical disciplines are short, but important, works for his time. Omar served Seljuq Soltan Malekshah until he died in 1092. After this time, Omar seems to have fallen from favor with the Turkish rulers of his region, and in 1095 he embarked on a lengthy journey to Mecca, then Bagdad, then back to his birthplace of Nishapur.
One of the great complications of Omar Khayyám’s life arose from his emersion in Greek philosophy that was often contrary to the religious teachings of conservative Islam. Because Omar was more philosophical than political in his thinking, and because he had seen the fate of those who risked their lives in the uncertain tides of politics, he preferred a private life, with only a few visitors. He maintained an outward show of orthodox Islamic practices, such as going to Mecca. In his philosophical dialogues and in his rubáiyát, however, he expressed his private views about the value of enjoying life daily. These pragmatic, somewhat melancholy observations about life sometimes bear a curious resemblance to the wisdom literature of the Old Testament, such as Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon, both attributed to Solomon. For example, one of the most often quoted stanzas of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám is stanza 12 from the fourth 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 enow!” Such writing may reflect something of the Epicurean tradition of the Greeks, but it also conveys the value of enjoying the simple pleasures of life, much as the Song of Solomon does.
Omar spent his final years quietly in the city of his birth. He avoided censure by the Turkish rulers, and he was well known for his insights into the mathematical sciences. The poetry for which the Western world would best know him was collected over the centuries and was first brought to prominence by Edward FitzGerald’s translation, initially published in 1859. Dante Gabriel Rossetti discovered this translation in 1861 and helped promote it among the literary elite of his day. Subsequent editions sold out quickly. Other poets such as Ferdousi of Tus, Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi, and Muslihu’d-din Sa’di of Shiraz are better known among Persians today, but Omar has eclipsed them in Western literature, chiefly as a result of FitzGerald’s famous translation.
The form of Omar Khayyám’s poetry was unusual for his time. Most Persian poets were expected to write a variety of poetic forms before writing rubáiyát. A typical divan, or collection of poetry by one poet, contained three other poetic forms before concluding with the rubáiyát. The first was the qasides (odes), the next form was the ghazals (lyrics), and the third form was the queta’at (pieces). These various forms could make use of nearly two hundred different meters, and poets were expected to show their agility by writing skillfully in various meters and forms. Omar wrote only in the fourth form included in a divan, the rubáiyát, chiefly because it was regular in meter and easier to master than the other forms. Furthermore, the four-line rhyme of aaba or aaaa patterns combined with short lines of ten to thirteen syllables each was well suited to short statements or epigrams. Although Omar apparently did not attempt to write in the other poetic forms used by Persian poets of his era, he excelled in writing the rubáiyát, and for these gems, as rediscovered by FitzGerald, Omar Khayyám is known well as one of the most gifted poets of Persia.