Word: omar
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Dates: during 1870-1879
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Those who recognize the catholicity which the trustees of the Library have shown in the selection of books will be surprised to learn that the poems of the Persian poet, Omar Khayam, are not on its shelves. The poems of Saadi and Hafiz are there, but, notwithstanding the fact that there is an elegant English translation of this astronomer poet, none of his works can be found in the College Library except his Algebra, and a few extracts from his verses published in the North American Review...
This matter is worthy of more than ordinary comment, because Omar is, by all odds, the most advanced thinker among Persian poets, and, though he was little known outside of his own country until about ten years ago, he is now occupying a position in the literary history of the world which a recognition of his merits...
...Omar Khayam, or Omar the Tent-maker, is the Horace of Persia. He was born in Khorassan, about the middle of the eleventh century of our era, and died in the year 1123. His life was passed in astronomical studies, and he probably composed his quatrains, which are bound together by no logical connection, in the intervals of his professional work...
...surprising that Omar should have busied himself with the same problems that are occupying men's thoughts to-day, for they are the questions that men in all lands and in all ages have been trying to answer; but the remarkable fact in regard to him is, that his mind ran in the same veins, and evolved the same conclusions, as the minds of the leading philosophers and scientists of to day. It is only within a few years that theologians of established worth have been willing to admit truths in regard to the future life that the astronomer poet...
...Ariosto"? Kourroglou's lament at the death of his steed Ayrat is one of the most beautiful and pathetic elegies in Oriental literature. Why did not Mr. Emerson expatiate on those three bright stars of the literary firmament, and why did he pass over with so little notice Omar Khayyam? Simply because, instead of dwelling on the lesser luminaries, he chose the sun, the brightest of them all, Hafiz. It was not his purpose in this simple essay to give us a complete compendium of Persian literature, embracing all the poets of any note, as Mr. Ticknor has done...