BIBLIOGRAPHIES

“Edward FitzGerald.” In Bibliographies of Twelve Victorian Authors, edited by Theodore G. Ehrsam and Robert H. Deily, pp. 78-90. New York: The H. W. Wilson Company, 1936.

Provides a list of bibliographical, biographical, and critical sources on FitzGerald and his works.

Timko, Michael. “Edward FitzGerald.” In The Victorian Poets: A Guide to Research, edited by Frederic E. Faverty, pp. 137-48. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1956.

Summarizes and evaluates the bibliographical, biographical, and critical materials available on FitzGerald and his works.

BIOGRAPHIES

Alexander, Doris. “FitzOmar: Live Eagle.” In Creating Literature Out of Life: The Making of Four Masterpieces, pp. 45-84. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996.

Describes the events that inspired FitzGerald to translate the Rubáiyát, and how its publication impacted his life.

Benson, A. C. Edward FitzGerald. London: MacMillan and Co., Limited, 1905, 207 p.

Biography that includes information on FitzGerald's writings, with a chapter on the Rubáiyát.

Martin, Robert Bernard. With Friends Possessed: A Life of Edward FitzGerald. London: Faber and Faber, 1985, 313 p.

Focuses on the impact of FitzGerald's family and friends—including Tennyson and Thackeray—on FitzGerald's life and career.

CRITICISM

Borges, Jorge Luis. “The Enigma of Edward FitzGerald.” In A Personal Anthology, edited by Anthony Kerrigan, pp. 93-6. New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1967.

Compares FitzGerald with Omar Khayyám, contending that although the two men were culturally and spiritually different, FitzGerald reflected both his and Omar's personalities in his translation of the Rubáiyát.

Cadbury, William. “FitzGerald's Rubáiyát as a Poem.” ELH 34, no. 4 (December 1967): 541-63.

Provides a structural analysis of the Rubáiyát.

Douglas-Fairhurst, Robert. “Edward FitzGerald: Under the Influence.” In Victorian Afterlives: The Shaping of Influence in Nineteenth-Century Literature, pp. 270-341. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Analyzes the themes of time and death in FitzGerald's writings.

Graves, Robert. “The Fitz-Omar Cult.” In The Original Rubaiyyat of Omar Khayaam: A New Translation with Critical Commentaries by Robert Graves and Omar Ali-Shah, pp. 1-31. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1967.

Laments the admiration frequently bestowed upon FitzGerald's Rubáiyát, arguing that it degrades—through clumsy craftsmanship, and its literal rather than metaphorical interpretation of the original—a mystical poem into the ramblings of a drunken hedonist.

Hearn, Lafcadio. “Edward FitzGerald and the ‘Rubaiyat.’” In Interpretations of Literature, edited by John Erskine, pp. 304-20. Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, Inc., 1915.

Describes the agnosticism evident in the Rubáiyát.

Page, Norman. “Larger Hopes and the New Hedonism: Tennyson and FitzGerald.” In Edward FitzGerald's The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, edited by Harold Bloom, pp. 151-68. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 2004.

Essay originally published in 1992. Traces the close friendship of FitzGerald and Lord Tennyson, and draws parallels between the Rubáiyát and “In Memorium,” contending that they both commemorate the loss of an intense friendship (FitzGerald's friendship with Edward Byles Cowell, and Tennyson's with Arthur Hallam) and were a source of consolation to their readers.

Richardson, Joanna. Edward FitzGerald. London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1960, 42 p.

Provides information on FitzGerald's life and writings, including a brief analysis of the Rubáiyát.

Woolford, John. “The Protean Precursor: Browning and Edward FitzGerald.” Victorian Literature and Culture 24 (1996): 313-32.

Draws parallels between FitzGerald's Rubáiyát and Robert Browning's “Rabbi ben Ezra.”

Additional coverage of FitzGerald's life and career is contained in the following sources published by Thomson Gale: British Writers, Vol. 4; Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 32; Literature Resource Center; Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism, Vol. 9; and Reference Guide to English Literature, Ed. 2.