Taher-Kermani, Reza
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
In: Taher-Kermani (Ed.) 2021 – The Persian Presence in Victorian. Edinburgh : Edinburgh University Press, 2021. ISBN: 9781474448161. Pp. 146–173
Omar Khayyám is known in Persian literary history as the supreme exponent of the rubáiy (pl. rubáiyát), a short verse from consisting of a single stanza, rhyming aaba. The extent of Khayyám’s fame, however, goes beyond the geographical or cultural boundaries of his place of origin. Thanks to Edward FitzGerald’s translation, Khayyám is now celebrated globally, not just as one of Persia’s classical poets, but as a learned philosopher who, in a collection of epigrammatic poems, has encapsulated some of the largest and most enduring preoccupations of humankind.