The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

by Omar Khayyam

"The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam" by Omar Khayyam is a translation published in 1859 by Edward FitzGerald, rendering Persian quatrains into English. Initially a commercial failure, the work became wildly popular throughout the English-speaking world by the 1880s, inspiring clubs and a "fin de siècle cult." The poems spark enduring debate: Are they expressions of religious skepticism and Epicurean philosophy, or mystical Sufi verses misunderstood by their translator? The authenticity of the quatrains themselves remains deeply uncertain.