Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, the Astronomer-Poet of Persia. Rendered into English Verse
Front cover of the first American edition (1878)

Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám is the title that Edward FitzGerald gave to his 1859 translation from Farsi to English of a selection of quatrains (rubiyt) attributed to Omar Khayyam (10481131), dubbed "the Astronomer-Poet of Persia".

FitzGerald's work at first was unsuccessful, but was popularised by Whitley Stokes from 1861 onward, and the work came to be greatly admired by the Pre-Raphaelites. In 1872 FitzGerald had a third edition printed which increased interest in the work in America. By the 1880s, the book was extremely well known throughout the English-speaking world, to the extent of the formation of numerous "Omar Khayyam Clubs" and a "fin de siècle cult of the Rubaiyat". FitzGerald's work has been published in several hundred editions, and it has inspired similar translation efforts both in English and in many other languages.

Further information: Omar Khayyam § Poetry
Calligraphic manuscript page with three of FitzGerald's Rubaiyat written by William Morris, illustration by Edward Burne-Jones (1870s).
Illustration by Adelaide Hanscom (c. 1910).

The authenticity of the poetry attributed to Omar Khayyam is highly uncertain. Omar was famous during his lifetime not as a poet but as an astronomer and mathematician. The earliest reference to his having written poetry is found in his biography by al-Isfahani, written 43 years after his death. This view is reinforced by other medieval historians such as Shahrazuri (1201) and Al-Qifti (1255). Parts of the Rubaiyat appear as incidental quotations from Omar in early works of biography and in anthologies. These include works of Razi (ca. 1160-1210), Daya (1230), Juvayni (ca. 1226-1283), and Jajarmi (1340). :434 Also, five quatrains assigned to Khayyam in somewhat later sources appear in Zahiri Samarqandi's Sindbad-Nameh (before 1160) without attribution

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