Some knowledge of the history Omar Khayyam and Edward Fitzgerald are necessary in the learning and writing of the rubaiyat. The Persian word rubaiyat is generally translated as meaning, 'quatrain' in English, which means a stanza of verse written in four lines. While each stanza can be considered a poem in itself, which is the way many translators insist that Khayyam intended them; others, mainly Fitzgerald, believed they were each a part of a much longer story, or elegy. Let us begin with a search of Omar Khayyam himself.
Omar Khayyam: Famed in Life and in Death
Khayyam lived from 1048 until 1122, a life-span of 74 years; providing the historical aspect is correct. He achieved fame while he was alive as a mathematician, astronomer, and scholar. His aptitude for poetry was little recognized among his peers; many of his Persian brothers did not consider him a poet at all. Among the many things he was widely recognized and respected for was reforming the Persian calendar and discovering a geometrical method of solving cubic equations by intersecting a parabola with a circle.
His name Khayyam (“Tentmaker”) may have been derived from his father’s trade. He received a good education in the sciences and philosophy in his native Neyshabur before traveling to Samarkand (now Uzbekistan), where he completed the algebra treatise Treatise on Demonstration of Problems of Algebra, on which his mathematical reputation principally rests.
It was not until after his death that Khayyam gained fame as a poet. His fame as a poet in the western world did not occur until the 1860s, with the publication of, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam; a free-wheeling translation of his quatrains by Edward Fitzgerald.
Edward Fitzgerald’s Life and Work
One cannot tell the story of Khayyam’s rubaiyats without telling the story of their English translator, Edward Fitzgerald. The poet was born in 1809 in Suffolk. One of eight children, his parents owned numerous estates in both England and Ireland. His education consisted of the King Edward the VI Grammar School and Trinity College in Cambridge.
He spent most of his life in Suffolk as a country gentleman, rarely leaving to go anywhere but London. For sixteen years he lived on the family estate in Boulge; subsequently spending the rest of his years in Woodbridge.
After learning Spanish privately, he produced blank-verse translations of six poems by Calderon (1853). His developing fascination with Persian poetry led him to translate a series of works. Salaman and Absal, an allegory by Kami was published anonymously in 1856 followed in 1859 by his most celebrated work, translations from the Rubaiyat.
His warm personality and sophisticated wit earned him the friendship of many great writers including William Thackery, Alfred Tennyson and Thomas Carlyle. Tennyson was to dedicate his poem ‘Tiresias’ to Fitzgerald. He left a legacy of delightful letters, bursting with anecdotes concerning his literary acquaintances, which were edited and published after his death.
Writing a Rubaiyat and Its Varieties
A rubaiyat is a quite simply a quatrain, as previously mentioned. It is usually written in tetrameter or pentameter, and the usual rhyme scheme is aaba; with the first, second, and fourth lines rhyming, while the third line remains unrhymed.
If you wish, you can stop there; as each quatrain is considered to be a complete poem. There are many scholars that think that the one-stanza, one-poem concept, is what Khayyam wished them to be; while others (most notably Fitzgerald) thought he intended them to be like short chapters in a longer story. For your writing purposes, it does not matter; you can stop at one quatrain or pile up a hundred, if you wish to.
It is this flexibility that makes writing a rubaiyat an adventure; you can make as much or as little of it as you want.
One popular variation that has enjoyed some success in these modern times is known as the interlocking rubaiyat. In this form, you start with the usual aaba, but then follow with bbcb; so that the fifth, sixth, and eighth lines rhyme with the third line of the preceding stanza, and the third and seventh lines remain non-rhymed. Continue this as long as you like, merrily interlocking your quatrains in this manner: aaba, bbcb, ccdc, dded; etc.
Whenever I contrive to write a rubaiyat, I like to try and use several stanzas to create a complete story; with a definite beginning, mid-plot, and end; as Fitzgerald did. But the choice is entirely up to you, the writer; and that is the beauty of this particular form.
A Couple of Examples of Rubaiyats
Here is one of Khayyam’s rubaiyats that you may well remember for its famous second line.
A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A jug of wine, a loaf of bread – and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness –
Oh, Wilderness – were Paradise enow!
One by an American, Robert Frost; entitled “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
Both are simple, but very beautiful.
Some Suggestions for Writing a Rubaiyat
As Stephen King noted, “a good writer must be a good reader as well.” With that in mind, read the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam at least once; I would recommend several times, absorb the nuances and flow of it.
Read other rubaiyats by different authors; you can find many others with a quick search. See how they handled it, how they made it work for them.
Read about variations of the rubaiyat, and search for closely related forms that you might use additionally.
And finally, decide where you want to go with your rubaiyat; if you want it to take the form of a story, know the story you wish to write, and think of the rhymes you will need. A rhyming story that runs out of rhyme very quickly becomes a forced, exasperating, object of futility.
But, whatever you do, don’t give up! Your rubaiyat can be as long or short as you wish; at first it will probably be best to start with short ones. You will soon discover they are not as hard as it may seem, and your life’s journey as a poet will be all the better for having learned something about them and for having tried to write them.
Besides, you will enjoy yourself, good or bad; and no one ever said having a good time was a bad thing!
Edward Fitzgerald – famous poemsandpoets
Omar Khayyam – encyclopedia brittanica
Omar Khayyam – mathematicians
Brazos Mason - If it's about golf or poetry, I'm your guy! I have numerous golf articles and over 1000 poems published.
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