Editing Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (section)

==Sources==
{{see|Omar Khayyam#Poetry}}
[[File:Rubaiyat Morris Burne-Jones Manuscript.jpg|thumb|Calligraphic manuscript page with three of FitzGerald's ''Rubaiyat'' written by [[William Morris]], illustration by [[Edward Burne-Jones]] (1870s).]]
[[File:033-Earth-could-not-answer-nor-the-Seas-that-mourn-q75-829x1159.jpg|thumb|Illustration by [[Adelaide Hanscom]] (c. 1910).]]
The authenticity of the poetry attributed to Omar Khayyam is highly uncertain. Khayyam was famous during his lifetime not as a poet but as an astronomer and mathematician. The earliest reference to his having written poetry is found in his biography by [[Imad ad-Din al-Isfahani|al-Isfahani]], written 43 years after his death. This view is reinforced by other medieval historians such as [[Shahrazuri]] (1201) and [[Al-Qifti]] (1255). Parts of the ''Rubaiyat'' appear as incidental quotations from Omar in early works of biography and in anthologies. These include works of [[Fakhr al-Din Razi|Razi]] (ca. 1160–1210), [[Najm al-Din Razi|Daya]] (1230), [[Ata-Malik Juvayni|Juvayni]] (ca. 1226–1283), and Jajarmi (1340).<ref name="Wine of Wisdom">{{cite book|title=The Wine of Wisdom: The Life, Poetry and Philosophy of Omar Khayyam |last=Mehdi |first=Aminrazavi |author-link=Mehdi Aminrazavi |year=2005 |publisher=[[Oneworld Publications]] |isbn=978-1-85168-355-0}}</ref>{{rp|92}}<ref name="Ross">Edward Denison Ross, "Omar Khayyam", ''Bulletin of the School Of Oriental Studies'', London Institution (1927)</ref>{{rp|434}} Also, five quatrains assigned to Khayyam in somewhat later sources appear in Zahiri Samarqandi's ''[[Sindbad-Nameh]]'' (before 1160) without attribution.<ref name="Dashti">Ali Dashti (translated by L. P. Elwell-Sutton), ''In Search of Omar Khayyam'', Routledge Library Editions: Iran (2012)</ref>{{rp|34}}

The number of quatrains attributed to him in more recent collections varies from about 1,200 (according to [[Saeed Nafisi]]) to more than 2,000. Sceptical scholars point out that the entire tradition may be [[pseudepigraphic]].<ref name="Dashti" />{{rp|11}}
The extant manuscripts containing collections attributed to Omar are dated much too late to enable a reconstruction of a body of authentic verses.

In the 1930s, Iranian scholars, notably [[Mohammad-Ali Foroughi]], attempted to reconstruct a core of authentic verses from scattered quotes by authors of the 13th and 14th centuries, ignoring the younger manuscript tradition. After World War II, reconstruction efforts were significantly delayed by two clever forgeries. De Blois (2004) is pessimistic, suggesting that contemporary scholarship has not advanced beyond the situation of the 1930s, when [[Hans Heinrich Schaeder]] commented that the name of Omar Khayyam "is to be struck out from the history of Persian literature".<ref>Francois De Blois, ''Persian Literature – A Bio-Bibliographical Survey: Poetry of the Pre-Mongol Period'' (2004), [https://books.google.com/books?id=2e55wuzPc3IC&pg=PA307 p. 307].</ref>

A feature of the more recent collections is the lack of linguistic homogeneity and continuity of ideas. [[Sadegh Hedayat]] commented that "if a man had lived for a hundred years and had changed his religion, philosophy, and beliefs twice a day, he could scarcely have given expression to such a range of ideas".<ref name="Dashti"/>{{rp|34}} Hedayat's final verdict was that 14 quatrains could be attributed to Khayyam with certainty.<ref name="Sadeq Hedayat's Learning">{{cite web|last1=Bashiri|first1=Iraj|title=Sadeq Hedayat's Learning|url=https://www.angelfire.com/rnb/bashiri/Fiction/Learning.html|website=Blind Owl|access-date=3 November 2017}}</ref> Various tests have been employed to reduce the quatrains attributable to Omar to about 100.<ref name="Ross" />{{rp|434}} [[Arthur Christensen]] states that "of more than 1,200 ruba'is known to be ascribed to Omar, only 121 could be regarded as reasonably authentic".<ref name="The Cambridge History of Iran" />{{rp|663}} Foroughi accepts 178 quatrains as authentic, while [[Ali Dashti]] accepts 36 of them.<ref name="Ross" />{{rp|96}}

FitzGerald's source was transcripts sent to him in 1856–57, by his friend and teacher [[Edward B. Cowell]], of two manuscripts, a Bodleian manuscript with 158 quatrains<ref>MS. Ouseley 140, copied in 1460 in [[Shiraz]], Persia, 47 folia. This is the oldest securely dated manuscript of Omar Khayyam's poetry. It belonged to [[William Ouseley]] (1767–1842) and was purchased by the Bodleian Library in 1844</ref>
and a "Calcutta manuscript".

FitzGerald completed his first draft in 1857 and sent it to ''[[Fraser's Magazine]]'' in January 1858.
He made a revised draft in January 1859, of which he privately printed 250 copies. This first edition became extremely sought after by the 1890s, when "more than two million copies ha[d] been sold in two hundred editions".<ref>Preface to a [https://books.google.com/books?id=NAtFAQAAIAAJ  facsimile of the first edition] (no year [c. 1900], "from the fine copy owned by Charles Dana Burrage" [1857–1926]).</ref>