Dear
Carolyn,
As is
well known (to use a Russian phrase), the Quatrains of Omar Khayyam (better
known as mathematician and astronomer in his lifetime) were published
anonymously in 1859 and FitzGerald was revealed as their translator only in
1875. It was ignored until a price reduction, after which Dante Gabriel
Rossetti discovered it and gave copies to Swinburne, Browning and Ruskin, who
received it enthusiastically -the Omar Khayyam craze was
born.
It
would be fair to say that FitzGerald's version, which he revised five
times, was inspired by or based
on rather than rendered
from. Perhaps a Victorian reincarnation of
sorts? It does not give an accurate idea of the original (the original in
this case being disparate poems), but will always retain its place in English
literature because of its poetical charm and elegance; it contains 110 quatrains
of which it is possible to identify some forty as being paraphrases from the
original Persian, and it would be futile to look for the original of the
remainder as it would be futile to search for the Arabic original of "Aladdin",
which simply does not exist. For various reasons, among them the introduction
and footnotes, I would recommend John Payne (1842-1916), that remarkable
polyglot, translator (of Villon, Heine, Hafiz, Bandello, Boccaccio) and founder
of the Villon Society, whose translation of the 1001 Nights Sir
Richard Burton plundered for his own; see his The Quatrains of Omar
Kheyyam (Villon Society 1898), limited to 500 copies (mine is #416). Payne
aptly describes FitzGerald's Quatrains as a "méditation sur des motifs
d'Omar Kheyyam," which reminds me of Vladimir Ashkenazy, who once
said about Maurice Ravel's famous orchestration of Modest Mussorgsky's "Pictures
at an Exhibition" that it was a "combed and
spruced Mussorgsky."
More
faithful versions followed, even one by Robert Graves in collaboration
with Omar Ali Shah, although it is believed that their version is
based on forged manuscripts, which Anthony Burgess reviewed;
and VN alluded to his review when he wrote:
"Anthony Burgess in Encounter has suddenly and conclusively
abolished my sentimental fondness for FitzGerald by showing how he falsified the
'witty metaphysical tent-maker's' *actual
metaphors..." "Reply to My Critics," Strong Opinions p.
246.
It is
of course preposterous to claim that FitzGerald is superior to Khayyam, one's
preference is purely subjective and depends on what one is looking for, and to
answer your question, yes, like you, like Payne and VN, I too have a sentimental
fondness for FitzGerald (as I do for Galland, for Browning's Aeschylus, for
Burton's Camões) having to do perhaps with the fact that I greatly enjoyed
it when I was too young and callow to be critical of the translations I
devoured.
*Khayyam means
tent-maker.
A.
Bouazza.
>
> nice to know
that Zubaidy fashioned his ³Bride¹s Crown² from the jewels of
>
Firuzabadi's "Al-Qamus al-Muhit", in other words, Zubaidy's is a vast
commentary on Firuzabady¹s 15th
> century multi-volume dictionary.)
Dear A. Bouazza
Since the subject of translation is on
the table and I assume you are able to read Omar Khayyam in the original,
which do you prefer - - the original or the Fitzgerald? Isn't this one
instance in which "profanation of the dead" might not apply? Or does it? The
Fitzgerald is certainly a metamorphosis of some sort. I am rather fond
of it and though it's hard to imagine, I wonder if I should prefer the
original?
Carolyn
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