Edward Fitzgerald

Fitzgerald, Edward 

Born Mar. 31, 1809, in Bredfield, Suffolk; died June 14, 1883, in Merton, Norfolk. English poet and translator.

Fitzgerald graduated from Cambridge University in 1830; his philosophical prose dialogue Euphranor (1851) recalls his years at the university. Fitzgerald’s translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (1859; 25 editions prior to the end of the 19th century) has been deemed a classic in English literature. In his free translation of the Persian original, in which only 49 quatrains are more or less precisely translated, 44 are corruptions, several belong to other poets, and three are the work of Fitzgerald himself, Fitzgerald accentuated themes of joie de vivre and melancholy, contrasting them to the dull prose of bourgeois existence. In addition to bringing world renown to Omar Khayyam, his translation had a significant influence on the poetry of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Fitzgerald also translated works by Sophocles, Aeschylus, Calderón (six dramas), and Jami.

WORKS

Poetical and Prose Writings, vols. 1–7. New York–London, 1902–03.
Dictionary of Madame de Sévigné, vols. 1–2. London, 1914.

REFERENCES

Istoriia angliiskoi literatury, vol. 3. Moscow, 1958. Page 33.
Terhune, A. M. The Life of Edward Fitzgerald. London, 1947.
Arberry, A. J. The Romance of the Rubaiyat. London, 1959.