Rubaiyat- Plot and Major Characters

FitzGerald's Rubáiyát spans one day, from dawn until dusk. As morning breaks,
the narrator of the poem is contemplative. He reflects upon the transience of all
things, and contemplates man's inability to comprehend or influence destiny,
but finds enjoyment in the material pleasures of life. The narrator, who views
hedonism—particularly in the form of drinking wine—as the cure for man's ills,
is accompanied by a Saki, or wine-pourer, and imbibes throughout the day. In a
humorous section of several stanzas referred to as the “Kuza Nama”, animated
clay pots ponder and discuss the mysteries of their existence, and then become
quiet in anticipation of being filled with wine. The narrator, continuing to brood,
is moved to anger by thoughts of the indifference of God, imagining that life is
like a chess game in which people are mere pawns of destiny, with God looking
on but not caring about the outcome of the game. As the day progresses into
evening, the narrator associates his fading youth and eventual death with the
approach of darkness.

Major Themes

In the Rubáiyát, the sequence of a day acts as a metaphor for the passage of
time. The poem extols the hedonistic pleasures of food, sex, and wine, and the
importance of living for today, because the future is uncertain and life is fleeting.
It contemplates the riddle of life and expresses mankind's doubts, regrets, and
fears. Written during a time of religious upheaval—its first edition was published
the same year as Darwin's Origin of Species—the poem's questioning of
religion and traditional morality was both shocking and fascinating to its
readers.

Critical Reception

FitzGerald's original compositions, as well as the majority of his translated

works, were poorly received by his contemporaries. The Rubáiyát went virtually
unnoticed for a year after its publication, until Rossetti stumbled across it in a
bargain bin, and the poem became admired by him and fellow Pre-Raphaelites
for its refreshing impiety and sensuality. Upon the publication of the poem's
second edition, American Charles Eliot Norton wrote a highly laudatory review
of FitzGerald's translation of the poem, and indicated that he preferred
FitzGerald's version to another recently-written, and more faithful, translation of
the poem. Some critics faulted the Rubáiyát for many of the same flaws of style
and tone perceived in FitzGerald's earlier works, but most hailed the translation
as a lyrically beautiful original creation and praised FitzGerald's reorganization
of Omar's quatrains as a stylistic change that retained the poetic spirit of the
original. The work became so popular during the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries that, according to critic Daniel Schenker, it lost some of its
“artfulness” and did not receive very much scholarly study. Modern critics who
have written about the Rubáiyát echo the assessments of earlier critics, and
additionally comment upon the poem's wide-ranging influence.

The Rubiyat of Omar Khayyam is a poem of high divine and spiritual meaning.
The beauty and simplicity of this poem is so immaculate that people of all
faiths and those who have no faith at all can seek divine solace in it.

Omar has used popular metaphors in his passionate praise of wine and love.
They are mere symbols of Sufism where wine is the joy of spirit and the love is
immense devotion to God.

Omar has presented the nectar of divine ecstasy as a delightful alternative that
leads to human enlightenment and eradicates human woe permanently. He
has pictured the ordinary joys of life for the worldly men are able to compare
the mundane pleasures with the superior joys of spiritual life. The literal
meaning of the translated verses is completely absurd but the vast inner
meanings are like a golden treasure house.

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But the spiritual power inherent in this poem is a characteristic of the Persian
poems which have an outer as well as inner meaning. While the west has
interpreted Omar’s poems as highly erotic, the East has accepted him as a
religious poet. Plumbing into the depths of the poem gives interpretations that
make it appear like a shrine which is untouched.

Omar has distinctly suggested that wine symbolizes intoxication of spiritual joy
and love. Some translators have interpreted the verses saying that the whole
poem is an evocation of agnosticism and has a philosophy which seeks
happiness through friendships and the avoidance of pain. It suggests brevity of
life and the absence of an after life.