ENG 470 / 570 Spring 2025

The stanza “One Moment in Annihilation’s Waste, / One Moment, of the Well of Life to taste— / The Stars are setting and the Caravan / Starts for the Dawn of Nothing—Oh, make haste!” (FitzGerald, XXXVIII) (Figure 3) shows how short and fragile life is. It urges readers to enjoy the present before it slips away. This feeling of urgency is not only found in the… more

On page sixteen of Random House’s 1947 edition of the Rubáiyát, readers encounter stanzas twenty-one and twenty-two positioned next to an illustration of two Persian people relaxing and playing an instrument. The illustration on page seventeen is in direct conversation with… more

In Quatrain 10 of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, the stanza stages a fantasy of escape from hierarchy in a verdant haven beyond the desert. However, the accompanying image by Gordon Ross operates within a racist and Orientalist framework, depicting the Middle East as backward,… more

Together, the stanza and image present an impression of oppressive darkness, in conjunction with the creation of sin as it is expressed within the stanza. The two work in tandem to provide a stark juxtaposition against the comparative lightness of the other images and stanzas in the gift book; although the Rubáiyát … more

In stanza II of Balfour’s illustrated edition of Edward FitzGerald’s The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám the imagery of dawn, the sky, and taverns work together to support the overall meaning of the book: Life is fleeting, seize the moment and take pleasure in what you can.… more

Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám Astronomer Poet of Persia is a fascinating edition in the long history of Rubáiyát  gift books. This edition features many Art Nouveau illustrations that resemble, and don't, themes in the text. This edition is illustrated by Florence Lundborg, a San Francisco native who was commissioned by Doxey… more

This edition, “In a Persian Garden: A Song Cycle for Four Solo Voices (Soprano, Contralto, Tenor, and Bass”, is a musical score that uses various stanzas from The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyàm. The score contains no artwork outside the cover art. The cover art is a garden like image with pillars on the bottom half sides of the cover, with a flower arch across the top half of the cover. (… more

Frank Brangwyn’s illustration of a man carrying a pot on his shoulder correlates with stanza XLII to emphasize the importance of community and worldly pleasures discussed in Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. Similar to all editions, this… more

Stanza 60 of this version of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám plays a key role in developing one of the central themes of the book which is the mystery of existence and the human longing to understand it. The stanza presents a dramatic moment of… more

My edition, titled Fitzgerald's Rubáiyaát of Omar Khayam: Standard Edition of the Five Versions, is the twentieth edition in the Sigurd H. Peterson Collection. It was published in 1899 by L.C. Page and Company Incorporated. It is 282 pages long. There are numerous images throughout the book, all of which are described as photo-etchings from original drawings. All of the… more