FITZGERALD, EDWARD

born March 31, 1809, Bredfield, near Woodbridge, Suffolk, Eng. died June 14, 1883, Merton, Norfolk Edward FitzGerald, miniature portrait by Eva Rivett-Carnac after a photograph of 1873; in the English writer, best known for his Rubiyt of Omar Khayym, which, though it is a free adaptation and selection from the 12th-century Persian poet's verses, stands on its own as a classic of English literature. It is one of the most frequently quoted of lyric poems, and many of its images, such as A jug of wine, a loaf of bread, and thou and The moving finger writes, have passed into common currency. FitzGerald was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he formed a lifelong friendship with William Makepeace Thackeray. Soon after graduating in 1830, he retired to the life of a country gentleman in Woodbridge. Though he lived chiefly in seclusion, he had many intimate friends, including Alfred, Lord Tennyson and Thomas Carlyle, with whom he kept up a steady correspondence. A slow and diffident writer, FitzGerald published a few works anonymously, then freely translated Six Dramas of Caldern (1853) before turning to Oriental studies and mastering Persian. In translating Omar Khayyam, his method was to transmit the essence of the poet's mood and thought, often in his own imagery, in a sequence that would be intelligible to English readers. In March 1859 the Rubiyt was published in an unpretentious, anonymous little pamphlet. The poem attracted no attention until, in 1860, it was discovered by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and soon after by Algernon Swinburne. Its appearance in the same year as Darwin's Origin of Species, when the sea of faith was at its ebb, lent a timely significance to its philosophy, which combines expressions of outright hedonism (Ah take the Cash, and let the Credit go) with uneasy ponderings on the mystery of life and death. See also Omar Khayyam.