Click to watch the video: Drunken Beauty Illustrated Book "Rubai Collection"
Omar Hayyam was a famous Persian poet, mathematician and astronomer who, in addition to his literary achievements, participated in the revision of the Persian calendar in 1079. Today, his four-sonnet collection of poems, the Rubai Collection, is widely circulated around the world. The Rubai Collection is loved by many English readers thanks to the translation of the Englishman Edward Fitzgerald.
Fitzgerald was very wealthy but eccentric, a friend of the English writer William Mekbis Craeza and the English poet Tennyson, who initially had no intention of translating or writing. However, under the influence of his young friend Edward Cowwell, he began learning Persian in 1853. At that time, Cowell found the Persian Rubai Collection in the Bodleian Library at Oxford University and recommended it to him, and Fitzgerald was immediately fascinated by these verses.
It is said that the form of Persian quatrains originally originated from the cheers of a child, which were "concise, spontaneous, and full of wisdom" that were overheard and imitated by a passing poet. Fitzgerald rewrote, mixed, and even recreated verses from the Rubai Collection, culminating in a collection of 101 semi-narrative poems.
It has been pointed out that Fitzgerald's translation did not follow the original Persian pattern of these verses and lost the rhythm of the original verses. However, without his creative translation, this Persian tome might not have been noticed by English-speaking readers to this day. "Rubai Collection" laments the impermanence of life, timely pleasure, etc., the words are full of philosophy, the book quickly became famous in the Victorian era in England, and its influence at that time was no less than Darwin's "Origin of Species" published in 1859.
Many illustrators have illustrated the Rubai Collection, among which the British illustrator Gilbert James painted this set of illustrations is delicate, vivid, full of mysterious and ancient Persian style. These illustrations originally appeared in the form of black-and-white illustrations in Sketch magazine from 1896-1898, and later, A&C Black invited James to base them on a set of color illustrations as illustrations for the Rubai Collection. In 1909, the 16-color illustration of the Rubai Collection was officially introduced to the world.
Cui Ying: Journalist, documentary filmmaker, columnist, PhD of the University of Edinburgh, loves walking and literature, likes to collect old illustration books from all over the world, and has published books such as "British Illustrators" and "British Illustration Book Collection".
Author:Cui Ying
Editor: Jiang Chuting
Editor-in-Charge: Zhu Zifen
*Wenhui exclusive manuscript, please indicate the source when reprinting.