Recherches sur les Rubaiyat de Omar Khayyam

What it is

This is a 1905 critical study by the Danish scholar Arthur Christensen, examining the many quatrains attributed to Omar Khayyám. Christensen tried to separate verses likely written by Khayyám himself from the many others that had become attached to his name over centuries.

Why it matters

The Rubáiyát tradition includes hundreds of quatrains from many different authors and periods, loosely gathered under Khayyám's name. Christensen's research was an early scholarly attempt to bring historical rigor to this tangled tradition, showing how much of what readers think they know about Khayyám's poetry may not actually be his.

Look closer

• Why might so many anonymous verses have been attributed to one famous name over time?
• What kind of evidence would a scholar use to decide if a quatrain is 'authentic'?
• What does this study reveal about the difficulty of knowing the real historical Khayyám?