'A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of
Bread - and Thou ...' When Edward Fitzgerald first published his
translation of the poetry of Omar Khayyam in 1859 it had little
impact on the literary world. But a chance find in a bookshop by a
friend of the Pre-Raphaelites led to it being taken up by William
Morris and Edward Burne-Jones, and from then on its popularity
grew. Since then, it has become one of the most popular poems. In
turn, it has influenced writers such as Matthew Arnold and Thomas
Hardy, not to mention many musicians and film-makers in the
twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Omar Khayyam (1048-1131) was
a Persian poet and philosopher who lived at the court of Malik
Shah. He was also an astronomer and a mathematician. A manuscript
of some of his rubaiyat (four-line verses) survives in the Bodleian
Library and a copy of this manuscript is thought to have inspired
Fitzgerald to begin the translation. Fitzgerald's mystical and
sensual version of Omar Khayyam's quatrains is freely translated
and restructured to follow the course of a day. The epigrammatic
stanzas, infused with a melancholy yet consoling philosophy that
urges readers to seize the day and 'make the most of what we yet
may spend', have proved to be enduringly intriguing and popular.
Through brilliant imagery they celebrate the sensuous pleasures of
life - wine, food, love - while also mourning the painful truth of
its brevity. This decorative edition features gorgeous colour
illustrations with an oriental theme by Rene Bull, first published
in 1913, which provide a perfect counterpoint to the lines of this
extraordinarily influential poem.
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