SOURCE: Norton, Charles Eliot. “Nicolas's Quatrains de Khèyam.” North American Review 109, no. 225 (October 1869): 565-84.

In the following review, Norton compares the second edition of FitzGerald's Rubáiyát with J. B. Nicolas's version, finding that though the two versions agree in their literal meaning, Nicolas interprets the original poem as laden with spiritual metaphor, while FitzGerald interprets it primarily at face value, as sensual and hedonistic. Norton commends FitzGerald's version, particularly for bringing freshness to the poem through his liberal translation style, and assesses Nicolas's more exact translation as “dry.”

The prevailing traits of the genius of Omar Khayyám are so coincident with certain characteristics of the spiritual temper of our own generation, that it is hardly surprising that his poetry, of which hitherto the Western world knew nothing, is beginning to excite the interest it deserves, and has lately been made accessible to us in...