Edward FitzGerald (writer)

Edward FitzGerald, 1873

Edward FitzGerald (or Edward Fitzgerald , born March 31, 1809 in Woodbridge , Suffolk , † June 14, 1883 in Merton , Norfolk ) was a British writer and translator. He became famous for his first English translation of the Rubaiyat ( quatrains ) by Omar Chayyām , which had a significant influence on late Victorian and Edwardian poetry and a general interest in itPersian literature in Britain contributed.

Life

Edward FitzGerald, son of an Anglo-Irish family, was born Edward Marlborough Purcell at Bredfield Hall in Suffolk. In 1818 his father John Purcell took the name and the noble coat of arms of his wife's family, the FitzGeralds, who were among the wealthiest families in England .

After his family had spent a few years in France (St Germain and Paris ), they returned to England in 1818. In 1821 Edward was sent to the King Edward VI School in Bury St Edmunds and from 1826 attended Trinity College , Cambridge . There he made the acquaintance of the writer William Makepeace Thackeray , the essayist and historian Thomas Carlyle and the scholar William Hepworth Thompson. Many of his friends were members of the Cambridge Apostles circle , including Alfred Tennyson . He himself was not included in this group. In 1880 FitzGerald moved to Paris and later returned to his homeland. His family fortune allowed him to devote himself entirely to his garden, music and literature. In 1851 he published his first book Euphranor , a Platonic Dialogue , which was fed from his memories from Cambridge. Polonius , a collection of aphorisms , appeared in 1852 . From 1850 he began to study Spanish and Persian poetry. He did this with the company of the linguist Edward Byles Cowell (1826-1903), who had published his first Ghazel von Hafis at the age of 16 .

plant

Illustration of the first edition of the Rubaiyat in FitzGerald's translation

In 1853 FitzGerald brought out his Six Dramas of Calderón , which he had freely translated. In 1856 he published anonymously Salaman and Absal by Jami in miltonschem verse. As Cowell in the same year an academic job in India to assume that he handed FitzGerald as a parting gift a copy of some quatrains'Omar Chayyāms he received from a manuscript in the Bodleian Library , Oxford made would have. From Calcutta he sent him a copy of another manuscript. In 1859 FitzGerald published his first anonymous pamphlet under the name The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam , which initially was not noticed by anyone. It wasn't until 1860 that Victorian poets became aware of it, including Rossetti , Swinburne , Browning , Meredith and Lord Houghton. Further revised editions of the Rubaiyat followed in 1868, 1872 and 1879 and a shortened translation of Fariduddin Attar's bird talks , which he called A Bird's - Eye view of the Bird Parliament . From the beginning of the 1860s, FitzGerald turned to Spanish and Greek literature again. He translated Agamemnon of Aeschylus and two other pieces of Calderon and made translations of Oedipus - tragedies on.

Characteristics of his translations

FitzGerald's translations were characterized by his endeavor to create so-called "readable" versions - as he himself called them - that often differed significantly from the original. The aim of this approach was to adapt the works he edited to the tastes of his (then Victorian ) audience and to make them accessible. For this he made use of drastic cuts, sometimes also formal changes and a focus on the philosophical and metaphysical message of the work. In this way he managed to convey the tone and atmosphere of the translated piece.

The Rubaiyat of ʿOmar Chayyām

He proceeded similarly with the translation of the Rubaiyat : first he made formal changes and brought the quatrains into a continuous form of presentation. In terms of interpretation, he focused on the hedonistic approach of a skeptic to life.

Since its appearance, the Rubaiyat developed into an integral part of English-speaking culture: “[The Rubaiyat]… though a very free adaptation and selection from the Persian poet's verses, stands on its own as a classic of English literature. It is one of the most frequently quoted of lyric poems… “Of the 107 quatrains in FitzGerald's fifth edition, 43 are quoted in full in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations . There are also a number of individual quotations. One of the most widely known quatrains is the following, based on Eugene O'Neill in the title of his drama Ah Wilderness! Refers and which is sometimes parodied:

"A Book of Verse underneath the Bough, A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread - and Thou Beside me singing in the Wilderness - Oh Wilderness were Paradise enow!"

literature

Secondary literature

Harold Bloom: Modern Critical Interpretations Philadelphia, 2004.
Dick Davis: "Edward Fitzgerald". In: Encyclopedia Iranica . Routledge
Dick Davis: Fitzgerald, Edward . In: Ehsan Yarshater (ed.): Encyclopædia Iranica . Volume 10 (1), para. 02, as of December 15, 1999, accessed on June 8, 2011 (English, including references)
Robert Douglas-Fairhurst: Victorian Afterlives: The Shaping of Influence in Nineteenth-Century Literature. Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford 2002.
Gary Sloan: Great Minds . "The Rubáiyát of Edward FitzOmar". Winter 2002/2003 - Volume 23, No. 1

Bibliographies and biographies (selection)

AC Benson: Issue on FitzGerald in the English Men of Letters series.
Jorge Luis Borges : The Enigma of Edward FitzGerald . In: Selected Non-Fictions . Penguin 1999, ISBN 0-14-029011-7
Centenary Celebrations Souvenir . Ipswich, March 1909
Robert Bernard Martin: With Friends Possessed: A Life of Edward Fitzgerald
Alfred M. Terhune (Ed.): Letters . Collection of the letters in four editions. Syracuse University 1980.
Thomas Wright: Life of Edward FitzGerald . 1904 with bibliography (vol. Ii. Pp. 241–243) and a list of sources (vol. I. Pp. Xvi. – xvii.)
George F. Maine: Edward FitzGerald. The man and his work. in EF: Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, followed by Euphranor, a dialogue on youth, and Salaman and Absal, an allegory translated from the Persian of Jami. Series: Olive Classics. Collins, London & Glasgow 1953, pp. 25-48

Web links

Individual evidence

↑ Martin, p. 138, see article in the EIr
↑ cf. Article by Dick Davis, pp. 1 and 2
↑ cf. Davis, p. 2
↑ Entry in the Britannica, see web link
↑ The parodying version begins as follows: "A Cup of Coffee, A Sandwich, and You ..."
↑ The book has 320 pages. The text is also included in the edition of the Gift Classics series, ibid. 1974 ISBN 000424530X . It can be assumed that the text is also contained in the many Collins editions 1959 to 1971, each with 320 pages, as well as in the Reprint Wildside Press, Rockville (Maryland) 2009 ISBN 1434479145 . Bibliography on EF up to 1950
↑ EF's detailed introduction to this, including that of the 3rd edition, is included here. It can be found in print in the Collins edition from 1953 to 2009 obtained from Maine, see Ref.

personal data
SURNAME	FitzGerald, Edward
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Purcell, Edward Marlborough (real name); Fitzgerald, Edward
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	English poet and translator of Persian-language poetry (Chayyam)
DATE OF BIRTH	March 31, 1809
PLACE OF BIRTH	Woodbridge , England
DATE OF DEATH	June 14, 1883
Place of death	Merton , Norfolk

[1] Martin, p. 138, see article in the EIr

[2] . Article by Dick Davis, pp. 1 and 2

[3] . Davis, p. 2

[4] Entry in the Britannica, see web link

[5] The parodying version begins as follows: "A Cup of Coffee, A Sandwich, and You ..."

[6] The book has 320 pages. The text is also included in the edition of the Gift Classics series, ibid. 1974 ISBN 000424530X . It can be assumed that the text is also contained in the many Collins editions 1959 to 1971, each with 320 pages, as well as in the Reprint Wildside Press, Rockville (Maryland) 2009 ISBN 1434479145 . Bibliography on EF up to 1950

[7] EF's detailed introduction to this, including that of the 3rd edition, is included here. It can be found in print in the Collins edition from 1953 to 2009 obtained from Maine, see Ref.