FitzGerald s Rubáiyát: A Victorian Invention Esmail Zare-Behtash A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of the Australian National University August 1994
Unless otherwise indicated, this thesis is based on original research conducted by the author as a research scholar in the Department of English at the Australian National University. (Signed)........... ii
Contents page Introduction 1 Chapter I: FitzGerald and His Invention 6 1.1. FitzGerald s literary career and milieu 1.2. Omar s life and time 1.3. Literature Review Chapter II: Persian Sources and Their Reception 83 2.1. Reception of Persian Literature in Britain 2.2. FitzGerald and Persian Literature Chapter III: FitzGerald s Rubáiyát as a Victorian Product 131 3.1. FitzGerald s Reinvented Poem 3.2. Victorian Poetry and FitzGerald s Poem Chapter IV: Reception of the Rubáiyát by thevictorians 188 Bibliography 209 iii
Acknowledgment I wish to express my heartfelt thanks to my supervisor Dr. Simon Haines who was always available and helpful and contributed greatly to the preparation of my thesis. I also wish to thank my adviser Professor A. H. Jones from Asian Studies of A. N. U. whose prompt and helpful comments were most valuable, especially with regard to sections on Omar s life and time. Dr. David Parker, my adviser and former convener of the postgraduate program, provided constant encouragement and reassurance. I would like to thank Professor Stephen Prickett, a visiting-fellow at A. N. U., for several fruitful conversations in which he introduced me to the background of faith and doubt in the Victorian period. Mr. Graham Cullum, current convener of the post-graduate program, has my deepest gratitude for reading my final draft, despite the many other matters claiming his attention. I would like to thank the officials of the Bodleian Library who have kindly provided me with a photocopy of the Ouseley manuscript of Rubáiyát-i Hakim Umr [sic] Khiyám. I wish to express my gratitude to my two sons, and most especially to my wife Parivash for four years of tolerance and encouragement that I never found wanting. Finally, I wish to thank the Department of Scholarship in the Ministry of Culture and Higher Education in Iran, most especially Dr. Ghezel-Ayagh, the Department s representative in Australia, for facilitating the extension of my scholarship and his consistent encouragement. I wish to express my heartfelt thanks to my examiners for their comments on recasting my thesis and, above all, for their encouragement. iv
Abbreviations Letters The Letters of Edward FitzGerald, 4 vols. ed. Alfred Mckinley Terhune and Annabelle Burdick Terhune, Princeton: University New Jersey, 1980. Life The Life of Edward FitzGerald, Alfred Mckinley Terhune, London:Yale University Press, 1947. Rubáiyát The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, 4th ed. E. FitzGerald, London: B. Quaritch, 1879. Works The Variorum and Definitive Edition of the Poetical and Prose Writings of Edward FitzGerald, 7 vols. ed. George Bentham, New York: Phaeton Press, 1967. Whinfield The Quatrains of Omar Khayyam, 2nd. ed. E. H. Whinfield, London: Octago Press, 1980. v
Everybody became my friend out of his own surmise, None sought to discover the secrets in my heart, My secret indeed is not remote from my lament, But Eye and Ear lack the light to perceive it. (Rûmi, the Song of the Reed ) (tr. A. J. Arberry, Tales from the Masnavi, 21) vi
Abstract This study was written in the belief that FitzGerald did not so much translate a poem as invent a persona based on the Persian astronomer and mathematician (but not poet) Omar Khayyám. This invention opened two different lines of interpretation and scholarship, each forming its own idea of a real Omar based on FitzGerald s invention. One line sees Omar as a hedonist and nihilist; the other as a mystic or Sufi. My argument first is that the historical Omar was neither the former nor the latter; second, FitzGerald s Rubáiyát is a Victorian product even if the raw material of the poem belongs to the eleventh-century Persia. The Introduction tries to find a place for the Rubáiyát in the English nineteenthcentury era. Chapter One sets FitzGerald s Rubáiyát in perspective. First, it surveys the general background and context to the lives and careers of Edward FitzGerald and Omar Khayyám in order to show how FitzGerald s life was affected by some of the main concerns of the period; and that Omar was neither a hedonist nor a mystic; Secondly, it surveys four major critical studies which have generated different approaches to and emphases in the study and the translation of the rubáiyát attributed to Omar Khayyám. Chapter Two reviews some examples of Persian language and literature as they were perceived by British readers and authors and shows the reception of Persian poetry in general up to and including the Victorian period. Then it traces FitzGerald s progress with Persian literature, showing how the other Persian poets he read influenced his understanding or creation of the Rubáiyát, and how he discarded the great Persian poets but retained Omar Khayyám as his property. Chapter Three traces FitzGerald s career as a translator and attempts to give general characteristics of Victorian poetry to show how FitzGerald s version can be seen a Victorian product. Study of the poetry of the period shows the heterogeneity of Victorian poetry and FitzGerald s poem is another example of this multiplicity. The Rubáiyát should be read as a revolt against general Victorian values: optimism, earnestness, Puritanism, and science development. Chapter Four accounts for the initial neglect of the poem and then for the popular reception of the Rubáiyát by the Pre-Raphaelites and shows aspects in particular appealed to his contemporaries (like R. Browning) which, in turn, is a way of measuring the success of FitzGerald s Victorian invention. vii