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Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám and Salámán and Absál Together With A Life Of Edward Fitzgerald And An Essay On Persian Poetry By Ralph Waldo Emerson
Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.
- GenresPoetryNonfiction
126 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2010
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141 people want to read
About the author
Ralph Waldo Emerson
3,392 books5,347 followersRalph Waldo Emerson was born in Boston in 1803. Educated at Harvard and the Cambridge Divinity School, he became a Unitarian minister in 1826 at the Second Church Unitarian. The congregation, with Christian overtones, issued communion, something Emerson refused to do. "Really, it is beyond my comprehension," Emerson once said, when asked by a seminary professor whether he believed in God. (Quoted in 2,000 Years of Freethought edited by Jim Haught.) By 1832, after the untimely death of his first wife, Emerson cut loose from Unitarianism. During a year-long trip to Europe, Emerson became acquainted with such intelligentsia as British writer Thomas Carlyle, and poets Wordsworth and Coleridge. He returned to the United States in 1833, to a life as poet, writer and lecturer. Emerson inspired Transcendentalism, although never adopting the label himself. He rejected traditional ideas of deity in favor of an "Over-Soul" or "Form of Good," ideas which were considered highly heretical. His books include Nature (1836), The American Scholar (1837), Divinity School Address (1838), Essays, 2 vol. (1841, 1844), Nature, Addresses and Lectures (1849), and three volumes of poetry. Margaret Fuller became one of his "disciples," as did Henry David Thoreau.
The best of Emerson's rather wordy writing survives as epigrams, such as the famous: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." Other one- (and two-) liners include: "As men's prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a disease of the intellect" (Self-Reliance, 1841). "The most tedious of all discourses are on the subject of the Supreme Being" (Journal, 1836). "The word miracle, as pronounced by Christian churches, gives a false impression; it is a monster. It is not one with the blowing clover and the falling rain" (Address to Harvard Divinity College, July 15, 1838). He demolished the right wing hypocrites of his era in his essay "Worship": ". . . the louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons" (Conduct of Life, 1860). "I hate this shallow Americanism which hopes to get rich by credit, to get knowledge by raps on midnight tables, to learn the economy of the mind by phrenology, or skill without study, or mastery without apprenticeship" (Self-Reliance). "The first and last lesson of religion is, 'The things that are seen are temporal; the things that are not seen are eternal.' It puts an affront upon nature" (English Traits , 1856). "The god of the cannibals will be a cannibal, of the crusaders a crusader, and of the merchants a merchant." (Civilization, 1862). He influenced generations of Americans, from his friend Henry David Thoreau to John Dewey, and in Europe, Friedrich Nietzsche, who takes up such Emersonian themes as power, fate, the uses of poetry and history, and the critique of Christianity. D. 1882.
Ralph Waldo Emerson was his son and Waldo Emerson Forbes, his grandson.
The best of Emerson's rather wordy writing survives as epigrams, such as the famous: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." Other one- (and two-) liners include: "As men's prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a disease of the intellect" (Self-Reliance, 1841). "The most tedious of all discourses are on the subject of the Supreme Being" (Journal, 1836). "The word miracle, as pronounced by Christian churches, gives a false impression; it is a monster. It is not one with the blowing clover and the falling rain" (Address to Harvard Divinity College, July 15, 1838). He demolished the right wing hypocrites of his era in his essay "Worship": ". . . the louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons" (Conduct of Life, 1860). "I hate this shallow Americanism which hopes to get rich by credit, to get knowledge by raps on midnight tables, to learn the economy of the mind by phrenology, or skill without study, or mastery without apprenticeship" (Self-Reliance). "The first and last lesson of religion is, 'The things that are seen are temporal; the things that are not seen are eternal.' It puts an affront upon nature" (English Traits , 1856). "The god of the cannibals will be a cannibal, of the crusaders a crusader, and of the merchants a merchant." (Civilization, 1862). He influenced generations of Americans, from his friend Henry David Thoreau to John Dewey, and in Europe, Friedrich Nietzsche, who takes up such Emersonian themes as power, fate, the uses of poetry and history, and the critique of Christianity. D. 1882.
Ralph Waldo Emerson was his son and Waldo Emerson Forbes, his grandson.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
December 27, 2016
Sit back with this book and two bottles of red and you will find Heaven !
February 9, 2025
This went so far over my head that I might as well have not attempted reading it. I bought it at the library book sale last year because it was pretty. Apparently, FitzGerald's English translation is really bad, but I can't read Persian so what do I know?
Fun fact: a jeweled edition of this book sank on the Titanic!
Fun fact: a jeweled edition of this book sank on the Titanic!
March 6, 2022
Having just encountered a quote from this poem that was new to me I was moved to read it in its entirety. The original was in Persian and in translation has been rendered in 75 quatrains with a rhyme scheme of aab a. The theme is one of the impermanence of life and a desire to grab what joy one can find while life lasts. It remind me a great deal of the Proverbs of Solomon without the moral caste.
July 21, 2024
Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring
Your Winter-garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To flutter—and the Bird is on the Wing….
FitzGerald’s Rubaiyat is one of the greatest translations in world literature, evenly balanced with the Baudelaire and Mallarmé translations of Edgar Allan Poe, the Schlegel-Tieck translations of Shakespeare, and the King James translation of the Bible.
FitzGerald’s Rubaiyat points unambiguously to the poetic and philosophic dominance of 11th -century Persia over the prosaic, superstitious, intellectually primitive 11th -century West, a West still sunk in poverty, overrun by barbarians, confused, illiterate, depopulated, and primarily rural.
Far from looking down on Omar and his world, FitzGerald found there a better, more humane, more appealing world than that offered by Victorian England.
In FitzGerald’s hands, individual Persian quatrains amalgamated into one of the most poignant and most often cited modern poetic statements about forfeiture, yearning, and reminiscence.
The imagery of the Rubaiyat is wild, flamboyant, and extraordinary. It is a proto-modern achievement, hanging just on the lip of modernity.
Bloom has this to say:
A great eccentric, fortunately endowed with private means, Fitzgerald made a dreadful mistake in 1856 by marrying the daughter of a deceased friend, the Quaker poet Bernard Barton. After a year of quarrels, the couple separated, and Fitzgerald solaced himself by composing his Rubdiyat.
The historical Omar Khayyém (1048-1131) was a renowned astronomer and mathematician but only a minor poet, content to write many epigrams. Rubdiydt simply means quatrains, following a rhyme scheme (aaba).
A close friend, a scholar of Persian, made the manuscripts of Omar available to Fitzgerald. Published by an antiquarian bookseller and soon remaindered, Fitzgerald’s Rubdiyat would have vanished utterly except that a copy reached Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who fell in love with the poem. Rossetti introduced it to his circle, including Algernon Charles S winburne, William Morris, and George Meredith, and these enthusiasts made it known to a soon enthralled general reading public.
The poem became a transatlantic cult, and continues to be a part of Anglo-American literary culture.
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!
Your Winter-garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To flutter—and the Bird is on the Wing….
FitzGerald’s Rubaiyat is one of the greatest translations in world literature, evenly balanced with the Baudelaire and Mallarmé translations of Edgar Allan Poe, the Schlegel-Tieck translations of Shakespeare, and the King James translation of the Bible.
FitzGerald’s Rubaiyat points unambiguously to the poetic and philosophic dominance of 11th -century Persia over the prosaic, superstitious, intellectually primitive 11th -century West, a West still sunk in poverty, overrun by barbarians, confused, illiterate, depopulated, and primarily rural.
Far from looking down on Omar and his world, FitzGerald found there a better, more humane, more appealing world than that offered by Victorian England.
In FitzGerald’s hands, individual Persian quatrains amalgamated into one of the most poignant and most often cited modern poetic statements about forfeiture, yearning, and reminiscence.
The imagery of the Rubaiyat is wild, flamboyant, and extraordinary. It is a proto-modern achievement, hanging just on the lip of modernity.
Bloom has this to say:
A great eccentric, fortunately endowed with private means, Fitzgerald made a dreadful mistake in 1856 by marrying the daughter of a deceased friend, the Quaker poet Bernard Barton. After a year of quarrels, the couple separated, and Fitzgerald solaced himself by composing his Rubdiyat.
The historical Omar Khayyém (1048-1131) was a renowned astronomer and mathematician but only a minor poet, content to write many epigrams. Rubdiydt simply means quatrains, following a rhyme scheme (aaba).
A close friend, a scholar of Persian, made the manuscripts of Omar available to Fitzgerald. Published by an antiquarian bookseller and soon remaindered, Fitzgerald’s Rubdiyat would have vanished utterly except that a copy reached Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who fell in love with the poem. Rossetti introduced it to his circle, including Algernon Charles S winburne, William Morris, and George Meredith, and these enthusiasts made it known to a soon enthralled general reading public.
The poem became a transatlantic cult, and continues to be a part of Anglo-American literary culture.
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!
June 2, 2022
impossible to read
April 14, 2025
For in and out, above, about, below,
'Tis nothing but a Magic Shadow-show,
Play'd in a Box whose Candle is the Sun,
Round which we Phantom Figures come and go.
'Tis nothing but a Magic Shadow-show,
Play'd in a Box whose Candle is the Sun,
Round which we Phantom Figures come and go.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews