Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám

Synopsis

In 1859, edward fitzgerald translated into english the short, epigrammatic poems (or "rubáiyát") of medieval persian poet omar khayyám. If not a true translation--his omar seems to have read shakespeare and the king james bible--the poem nevertheless conveyed some of the most beautiful and haunting images in english poetry, and some of the sharpest-edged. By the end of the century, it was one of the best-known poems in the english language, admired by swinburne and ruskin.