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December 25, 2001

Khayyam: Dante Gabriel Rossetti

The question posed by Zara Houshmand was: Which European poet was responsible for the sudden popularity of Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat in nineteenth century England? The answer, which no one was able to guess is Dante Gabriel Rossetti (almost everyone who answered said Edward Fitzgerald, Rubaiyat's translator). Rossetti is better known by Americans as the 'pre-Raphaelite' painter, though also a very fine poet. The Fitzgerald translation was initially published anonymously in London in 1859. It remaindered something like a vanity publishing effort until Rossetti picked it up by chance, loved it, bought up all the available copies and sent it to friends and influential literati.

Here are two sources:

http://www.vantagepress.com/orig2000/page03b.htm:

"Edward Fitzgerald, paid to publish his masterpiece The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. He placed 100 copies in the window of a local bookstore. There it attracted the attention of the noted painter, poet and leader of the pre-Raphaelites, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, who was so impressed with The Rubaiyat he bought all of the dealer's copies to send to his friends. Thus started the groundswell of acclaim for this international best-seller which has sold in the millions and is still going strong!"

http://itsa.ucsf.edu/~ico/poetry/rubayat/rubayat.htm:

"The 12th century Persian poet Omar Khayyám, is well known in the West, through the work of the English clergyman, poet and translator Edward Fitzgerald.  Published in 1859, Fitzgerald's Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám attracted little attention until 1860, when it was discovered by other artists and literary figures, such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti who was a poet, and is well-known as one of the painters of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood."

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