My fascination with the Rubaiyat (of Omar Khayyam, not Jalal-ud-din Rumi)

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Daniel al-Autistiqui - 29 Dec 2006 18:28 GMT

Does anyone understand how much I've been fascinated by Edward
FitzGerald's famous work _The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám_ that renders
the quatrains of a Persian poet into the English language? It is my
favorite poem, more or less. I study it all the time, and I seem to
have memorized almost half of the stanzas! The only thing that has
bothered me about it is the exact semantics of the term "the
Rubaiyat", as this phrase refers so often to the Rubaiyat of Omar
Khayyam and is unlikely to refer to, say, the Rubaiyat of Jalal-ud-din
Rumi. Because of this I haven't for quite a while been able to sing
the stanzas of the Rubaiyat (of Omar Khayyam, that is) to the tune for
them that I made up.

BTW, I just did a Google search and got

"rubaiyat": 635,000 hits
"rubdiydt": 143 hits

I posted a message about "Rubdiydt of Omar Khayydm" (sic) a couple of
weeks ago, and there still have been no responses from the other
AUEers. Perhaps they just don't know what to make of the (non-)word
"Rubdiydt". I leave it as a puzzle for you to figure out why Google
gives so many hits for "Rubdiydt".

daniel mcgrath

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Daniel Gerard McGrath, a/k/a "Govende":
for e-mail replace "invalid" with "com"

Developmentally disabled;
has Autism (Pervasive Developmental Disorder),
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder,
& periodic bouts of depression.
[This signature is under construction.]

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John Dean - 29 Dec 2006 18:45 GMT

> Does anyone understand how much I've been fascinated by Edward
> FitzGerald's famous work _The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám_ that renders
> the quatrains of a Persian poet into the English language?

Indeed. It's been a favourite of mine since I was a teenager

Because of this I haven't for quite a while been able to sing

> the stanzas of the Rubaiyat (of Omar Khayyam, that is) to the tune for
> them that I made up.

How does the tune go?

> I posted a message about "Rubdiydt of Omar Khayydm" (sic) a couple of
> weeks ago, and there still have been no responses from the other
> AUEers. Perhaps they just don't know what to make of the (non-)word
> "Rubdiydt". I leave it as a puzzle for you to figure out why Google
> gives so many hits for "Rubdiydt".

"Rubdiydt" seems to be an early transliteration, as does Khayydm.

You may be interested in this page:

http://theliterarylink.com/versification.html

"Three rhyming lines (rhyming aaba) A four-line stanza with three rhyming
lines is some what rare; it is used very effectively in FitzGerald's The
Rubdiydt of Omar Khayydm."

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John Dean
Oxford

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Snis Pilbor - 29 Dec 2006 19:00 GMT

When I was in high school I was similarly fascinated with S.T.
Coleridge's (much shorter) "Kubla Khan" (which, again, noone seems to
know how to spell, be it "Kubla" or "Kublai" or "Kublah"). I can still
recite it from memory.. I even translated it into Spanish as a project
in a Spanish class. Anyway, it's supposed to be somehow related to the
Rubaiyat, so maybe you'd be interested in it, I hope you'll look it up
(it's really very short and beautiful).

> Does anyone understand how much I've been fascinated by Edward
> FitzGerald's famous work _The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám_ that renders
[quoted text clipped - 29 lines]
> & periodic bouts of depression.
> [This signature is under construction.]

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LaReina del Perros - 29 Dec 2006 21:35 GMT

>BTW, I just did a Google search and got
>
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
>"Rubdiydt". I leave it as a puzzle for you to figure out why Google
>gives so many hits for "Rubdiydt".

Uncorrected OCR error, apparently.

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CDB - 30 Dec 2006 13:37 GMT

>> BTW, I just did a Google search and got
>>
[quoted text clipped - 8 lines]
>
> Uncorrected OCR error, apparently.

Yah. Through a scanner darkly.

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Yusuf B Gursey - 03 Jan 2007 21:07 GMT

> Does anyone understand how much I've been fascinated by Edward
> FitzGerald's famous work _The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám_ that renders
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> bothered me about it is the exact semantics of the term "the
> Rubaiyat", as this phrase refers so often to the Rubaiyat of Omar

it simply means "quatrains"

> Khayyam and is unlikely to refer to, say, the Rubaiyat of Jalal-ud-din
> Rumi. Because of this I haven't for quite a while been able to sing
[quoted text clipped - 13 lines]
>
> daniel mcgrath

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Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2007

My fascination with the Rubaiyat (of Omar Khayyam, not Jalal-ud-din Rumi)