Publisher's Synopsis
Edward FitzGerald, renowned world-wide for his translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, began his foray into the Persian language with this poem: Salaman and Absal, an Allegory by the famous fifteenth century Sufi poet, Jami. FitzGerald, a most unusual nineteenth century Victorian gentleman, identified himself in some mystical way with ancient Persian language and thought. Whatever fine qualities Jami's Persian possessed in the fifteenth century, FitzGerald's remarkable nineteenth century translation into English reflects the influences of his own time, which are powerfully Miltonic. Consequently, in FitzGerald's words, his translation, "as something that should interest a few who are worth interesting," should perhaps be best read and enjoyed in the Miltonesque spirit of the nineteenth century. Of course, if allegory is not to your taste, as it was famously not to the taste of J.R.R. Tolkien, this volume is not for you. For the rest, those "few who are worth interesting," this romantic allegory of love, loss, wisdom, and destiny will, with only a little effort, transport you to a charming and exotic world far removed from our still young and already turbulent twenty-first century.
