| Revision as of 18:54, 1 April 2004 edit66.153.24.101 (talk) +Persian literature← Previous edit | Revision as of 19:28, 12 April 2004 edit undo150.176.68.34 (talk)No edit summaryNext edit → | ||
| Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
| ] ] | |||
| The man known in English as the poet '''Omar Khayyám''' (] عمر خیام) (], ] - ] ]) was born in ] (or Naishapur) in ], ] (]), and named <i>Ghiyath al-Din Abu'l-Fath '''Umar''' ibn Ibrahim Al-Nisaburi al-'''Khayyami'''</i> (''al-Khayyami'' means "the tentmaker"). | |||
| ==Omar Khayyam the Mathematician== | |||
| He was famous during his lifetime as a ] and ] who calculated how to correct the ]. On March 15, 1079, Sultan Jalal al-Din Malekshah Saljuqi (1072-1092) put Omar's corrected calendar into effect, as in ] ] had done in 46 B.C. with the corrections of ], and as ] would do in February 1552 with ]' corrected calendar(although ] would not switch from the ] to the ] until 1751, and ] would not switch until 1918). | |||
| He is also well known for inventing the method of solving ]s by intercepting a ] with a ]. | |||
| ==Omar Khayyam the Writer and Poet== | |||
| Omar Khayyám is famous today not for his scientific accomplishments, but for his literary works, about a thousand four-line verses he is believed to have written. Around a hundred of them were translated into English by ] (1809-1883) and published as '']'' (''rubáiyát'' means "quatrains"). | |||
| Other people have also published translations of some of the verses, but Fitzgerald's is the best known. As a work of literature Fitzgerald's poetry is a high point of the 19th century. As a work of accurate line-by-line translation of Omar Khayyam's quatrains, it is too free to be accurate. In particular, Fitzgerald gave the Rubayyat a distinct ] spin. In fact, Fitzgerald himself referred to his work as "transmogrification". Some people find this quite unfortunate. Others see Fitzgerald's translation of the work as being close to the true spirit of the poems. Khayyam himself clearly was not an atheist, but a ], and a devout Muslim, though perhaps in somewhat anorthdox way for his time. (For a good alternative to Fitzgerald's translation, consider one by ] and Ali-Shah. ) | |||
| Perhaps the most famous of the verses (Fitzgerald's XII in his 5th edition , a reworking of XI in his 1st edition) is: | |||
| ::"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 now!" | |||
| Another well-known verse (Fitzgerald's LI in his 1st edition) is: | |||
| <TABLE ALIGN="right"> <TR> <TD> | |||
| ] | |||
| </TD> </TR> </TABLE> | |||
| ::"The Moving Finger writes: and, having writ,<br> | |||
| ::Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit<br> | |||
| ::Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,<br> | |||
| ::Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it."<br> | |||
| ==Influences== | |||
| Like ]'s works, Omar Khayyám's verses have provided later authors with quotations to use as titles: The title of ]'s ] novel ''Some Buried Caesar'' comes from one of the Tentmaker's quatrains (Fitzgerald's XVIII), for example. ]'s drama "Ah, Wilderness!" derives its title from the first quoted verse above. | |||
| Omar's life is dramatized in the 1957 film ''Omar Khayyam'' starring ], ], ], ], and ]. | |||
| see ] | |||
| ==External links== | |||
| * | |||