Omar Khayyam

Omar Khayyam, matemático, y poeta persa, recibió una sólida educación en ciencias y filosofía y fue un prestigioso astrónomo, lo que le ha valido que se pusiera su nombre a un importante cráter de la Luna: el crater Omar Khayyam. Fruto de su gran erudiccion, nos ha dejado uno de los libros mas importantes de todos los tiempos, los Rubaiyat, que significa literalmente estrofas. En este pequeño libro, que se empezo a conocer tres siglos despues de la muerte del poeta. Omar Khayyam nos brinda con exquisita sensibilidad unas odas al vino y la belleza, el goce del momento presente, la vanidad de la vida en este mundo, etc.

Para muchos occidentales, Omar Khayyam es uno de los mejores poetas de todos los tiempos, aunque para sus contemporáneos destacó mucho más como hombre de ciencia que como poeta y sus «cuartetas» se l

Omar Khayyam (1048-1122) was a Persian mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher who was not known as a poet in his lifetime. These verses lay in obscurity until 1859, when FitzGerald published a free adapation of this Persian poetry. As a result, The Rubaiyat became one of the best-known and most often quoted English classics.

The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám is the title that Edward Fitz-Gerald gave to his translation of a selection of poems, originally written in Persian and of which there are about a thousand, attributed to Omar Khayyam , a Persian poet, mathematician and astronomer. A Persian rubai is a two-line stanza with two parts per line, hence the word "Rubaiyat" , meaning "quatrains". The translations that are best known in English are those of about a hundred of the verses by Edward FitzGerald . Of the five editions published, four were published under the authorial control of FitzGerald. The fifth edition, which contained only minor changes from the fourth, was edited after his death on the basis of manuscript revisions FitzGerald had left. FitzGerald also produced Latin translations of certain rubaiyat. As a work of English literature FitzGeralds version is a high point of the 19th century and has been greatly influential. Indeed, The term "Rubaiyat" by itself has come to be used to describe the quatrain rhyme scheme that FitzGerald used in his translations: AABA. However, as a translation of Omar Khayyams quatrains, it is not noted for its fidelity. Many of the verses are paraphrased, and some of them cannot be confidently traced to any one of Khayyams quatrains at all. Some critics informally refer to the FitzGeralds English versions as "The Rubaiyat of FitzOmar", a nickname that both recognizes the liberties FitzGerald inflicted on his purported source and also credits FitzGerald for the considerable portion of the "translation" that is his own creation. In fact, FitzGerald himself referred to his work as "transmogrification". "My translation will interest you from its form, and also in many respects in its detail: very unliteral as it is. Many quatrains are mashed together: and something lost, I doubt, of Omars simplicity, which is so much a virtue in him" .

In 1867 Jean Baptiste Nicolas , scholar and career diplomat, published the first major French translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. This version is in prose and the collection contains 464 verses.In Nicolas view, Omar was no Epicurean reveler but rather a relentless spiritual seeker his frequent allusions to wine and lovers are metaphors, expressive of a divine discontent that can only be resolved by union with a mystical beloved. However, most other translators and commentators regard Omar as a man who sampled and enjoyed both earthly and philosophical delights.In 1903 Frederic Rolfe, the self styled Baron Corvo, published an English translation of Nicolas version. In the same year Robert Arnot published a collection of translations which also included an English version of Nicolas text. While both these translations are in prose, Rolfes version, with its heraldic and evocative verbiage, and its presentation of Omar as a more rounded personality than Nicolas etiolated mystic, can be considered, as with Fitzgeralds celebrated translation, as an independent work of art.

One of the greatest works of poetry in history, this lyric poem presents the deep feelings and emotions of the poet on subjects such as life, death, love, God and destiny.

The translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam by Edward Fitzgerald has remained the most celebrated rendering in English of the Persian poets work. While several other scholars produced their own translations of the Rubaiyat, yet others contented themselves by just paraphrasing the work of Fitzgerald. This recording features three reworkings of previously published translations. Arthur Guiterman and Ruel William Whitney based their renderings on the Fifth Edition of Fitzgeralds translation and Richard Le Gallienne, a distinguished poet in his own right, compiled his version from a variety of sources, in particular the prose translation by Justin Huntly McCarthy.

Translator: Edward Fitzgerald

The Rubaiyat is a long translated poem by the legendary eleventh-century Persian poet Omar Khayyam. The title of the poem means "the quatrains in Arabic and Persian. The exotic nature of the poem along with its beautiful descriptions and spiritual aspirations captivated Victorian readers when it was first published in English and intensified the common fascination with everything oriental. The poem is believed to have had a great influence on British poets such as Thomas Hardy and William Butler Yeats as well as on poets from other Western traditions. Indeed, Western poets of the period were greatly concerned about the excessive growth of industrialization and the spread of materialistic and positivistic thought, particularly with the publication of Charles Darwins theories about evolution, natural selection and the survival of the fittest. The poem, hence, came to revive interest in romanticism and sensuality and mix them with a deep sense of oriental spirituality that could counterbalance the prevailing artificiality.

(...) As Rubaiyat (...) trataban dun pracer destemido, dun dionisismo que falaba coa morte con naturalidade e concisión, economía da sintaxe (...): poemas de mocidade, transgresores, de gozo do viño, tabernarios, do paso do tempo, da natureza (no xardín), de amor erótico, de desamor, do ciclo pracer e dor, relación de opostos, da vaidade, teolóxicos, das aparencias, crítica das institucións (en especial da relixiosa), do pasar dos camiñantes pola paisaxe, dos perigos do camiño, da soidade, dos libros, do rodar de vida e morte (no torno do oleiro), da identidade co mundo e de todo con todo, do pasaxeiro, da confusión, da necidade, o destino, a amizade, a humildade e a compaixón, da natureza da morte, da vellez, da derrota, das estrelas, do desexo... Todo un repertorio.

Rubaiyat es una colección de poemas filosóficos, místicos y espirituales que son atribuidos a Omar Khayyam, poeta, matemático y astrónomo persa del siglo XI. Los maravillosos versos de Omar Khayyan, escritos en el siglo XI, no solo pueden cambiar el pensamiento y los sentimientos de los buenos lectores, sino que tienen la fuerza y razones suficientes para modificar tambien sus planteamientos vitales. Lean y disfruten con ellos...

Biharkoak zer dizun gorderik ez dakizunez, saia zaitez gaur zoriontsu izaten. Har ezazu txarro bat ardo, ilargiaren argipean eser zaitez eta edan ezazu pentsatuz agian bihar ilargia alferrik arituko

Illustrator: Edmund Dulac / Translator: Edward Fitzgerald

Translator: Edward Fitzgerald

Desde la primera aparición en Occidente de Las Rubaiyyat en 1859, estas cuartetas, escritas entre los siglos XI y XII, han conocido un éxito y una difusion poco habituales para las obras de tal naturaleza. Esto se debe a que dichos poemas dejan un gran impacto en el lector por el contenido que en apariencia muestra la dualidad de lo sagrado-profano desde unas posiciones de escepticismo, rebeldia y agnosticismo. Lo que motivo que muchos eruditos hayan identificado a Khayyam como un nihilista sarcastico embargado por la indiferenncia y el pesimismo. Otros, sin embargo, han advertido en Las Rubaiyyat el delicado perfume del sufismo, y, desde esta perspectiva, su lectura adquiere una dimension diferente y reveladora. Sea como fuere, aqui queda para el lector esta joya de la literatura universal tomada de la version francesa de Franz Toussaint en atencion a sus valores de claridad, sencillez y elegancia.