Edward FitzGerald
Edward FitzGerald
1809 — 1883
Royaume-Uni, Royaume-Uni de Grande-Bretagne et d'Irlande
19th-century British poet and translator, celebrated for his free translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (1859), which achieved remarkable success across Europe and helped introduce Persian poetry to Western readers.
Famous Quotes
« A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, / A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread—and Thou. »
« The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, / Moves on. »
Key Facts
- Born in 1809 in Bredfield (Suffolk, England), died in 1883
- Published his translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam anonymously in 1859
- His translation, initially overlooked, was rediscovered by Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the Pre-Raphaelites
- Friend of Tennyson and Thackeray, a prominent figure in Victorian literary circles
- Also translated plays by Calderón and works from ancient Greek
Works & Achievements
A free translation of the quatrains of the Persian poet Omar Khayyam. Initially ignored, the work became a worldwide bestseller after its rediscovery by the Pre-Raphaelites and profoundly influenced English-language literature in the late 19th century.
A philosophical dialogue inspired by the Platonic tradition, exploring questions of education, youth, and the English national character. It reveals FitzGerald's solid classical training and his taste for moral reflection.
An anthology of maxims and proverbs drawn from various authors, reflecting the practical wisdom FitzGerald admired. It bears witness to his wide learning and his fondness for aphoristic literature.
Free translations of six plays by the great Spanish dramatist Pedro Calderón de la Barca. These adaptations reveal FitzGerald's talent for making foreign texts his own and bringing them to life in the English language.
A translation of the Persian allegorical poem by Jami, and FitzGerald's first major engagement with Persian literature before the Rubaiyat. It attests to his study of Persian and his growing fascination with Eastern poetry.
A free translation of the celebrated Greek tragedy, showing the enduring interest FitzGerald maintained in classical texts throughout his career, alongside his work on Eastern poetry.
A collection of FitzGerald's correspondence with Tennyson, Thackeray, Cowell, and others. Regarded as a masterpiece of Victorian epistolary prose, the letters reveal an endearing personality and a sharp-eyed observer of his age.
Anecdotes
When FitzGerald published his translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam in 1859, the book passed entirely unnoticed. The publisher Bernard Quaritch eventually sold off unsold copies for a penny each at a secondhand bookstall. It was there that the Pre-Raphaelite poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti stumbled upon it by chance and, captivated, circulated it through London's literary circles, sparking a genuine Orientalist craze across England.
FitzGerald was a man of painful shyness who shunned social life. He lived in Woodbridge, Suffolk, and spent entire days sailing his boat in the company of local fishermen whose plain-spoken candour he prized. This rustic way of life stood in striking contrast to his aristocratic upbringing and his friendships with celebrated figures such as Tennyson and Thackeray.
In 1856, FitzGerald married Lucy Barton, daughter of his friend the Quaker poet Bernard Barton, out of a sense of duty to the family of the recently deceased. The marriage was a complete disaster: the couple separated after only a few months. FitzGerald himself acknowledged in his letters that he had been a dreadful husband, with a self-deprecating wit that was thoroughly British.
It was the scholar Edward Cowell who opened Persian poetry to FitzGerald, teaching him the language and showing him a manuscript of Omar Khayyam's quatrains at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. FitzGerald never sought to produce a faithful translation: he freely reworked the quatrains, infusing them with his own melancholy, and created a work that belongs as much to himself as to Khayyam.
Despite the belated fame of his translation, FitzGerald steadfastly refused honours and social engagements. When admirers came to visit him in Woodbridge, he would advise them not to make the journey. He died in his sleep in 1883, never fully grasping how profoundly his Khayyam would go on to influence writers such as Oscar Wilde and whole generations of readers well into the twentieth century.
Primary Sources
Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night / Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight: / And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught / The Sultan's Turret in a Noose of Light.
I take old Omar more as my property than as a version of anything: something to be proud of, and something to ask pardon for.
I am settled down into a very quiet and rather happy life here, doing nothing that the world calls great, but perhaps something that will amuse a few people hereafter.
We talked of the great world — of action and of ambition — and of those who fall short of both, who live and die unnoticed, and yet are not therefore to be pitied.
Key Places
A small port town in Suffolk where FitzGerald spent most of his adult life in voluntary retreat. It was here that he worked on his translations and led the existence of a solitary gentleman-scholar, far from the drawing rooms of London.
The university where FitzGerald studied between 1826 and 1830, forging friendships with Thackeray, Tennyson, and other future luminaries of Victorian literature. These formative years shaped his literary tastes and lifelong friendships.
It was in this library that Edward Cowell discovered and showed FitzGerald a manuscript of Omar Khayyam's quatrains, sparking the intellectual and poetic adventure that would bring the translator lasting fame.
A village in Suffolk where FitzGerald is buried in the parish churchyard. A rose bush planted on his grave grew from cuttings taken from a rose growing on Omar Khayyam's tomb in Nishapur, Iran — a symbol of the bond between the two poets across time.
FitzGerald loved sailing along the Suffolk coast and spent time among local fishermen, whose plain-spoken company he greatly enjoyed. These windswept maritime landscapes fed his melancholy and poetic sensibility.