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Rubaiyat

 

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Rubaiyat



 
 
"Ruba?i" is Arabic
Arabic language

Arabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages languages such as Hebrew language and Aramaic language....
 for "quatrain
Quatrain

A quatrain is a poem composed of two rhyming couplets, or a stanza within a poem, that consists always of four lines. The rhyming patterns include aabb, abab, abba, abcb, aaba, or aaaa ....
", and is used to describe a Persian quatrain, or its derivative form in English and other languages. The plural form of the word, ruba?iyat (??????? - often anglicised rubaiyat), is used to describe a collection of such quatrains.

There are a number of possible rhyme scheme
Rhyme scheme

A rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhyming lines in a poem or song. It is usually referred to by using Letter s to indicate which lines rhyme. In other words, it is the pattern of end rhymes or lines....
s to the rubaiyat form, e.g. AABA, AAAA. . In Persian verse, a ruba'i is visually only two lines long, its rhyme falling at the middle and end of the lines.

word "ruba?i" is derived from the same Arabic root as "arba?a", meaning "four".

verse form AABA as used in English verse is known as the Rubaiyat Quatrain due to its use by Edward FitzGerald
Edward FitzGerald (poet)

Edward Marlborough FitzGerald was an England writer, best known as the poet of the first and most famous English translation of Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam....
  in his famous 1859 translation, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is the title that Edward FitzGerald gave to his translation of a selection of poems, originally written in the Persian language and of which there are about a thousand, attributed to Omar Khayy?m , a Persian literature, Mathematics in medieval Islam and Astronomy in medieval Islam....
.






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"Ruba?i" is Arabic
Arabic language

Arabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages languages such as Hebrew language and Aramaic language....
 for "quatrain
Quatrain

A quatrain is a poem composed of two rhyming couplets, or a stanza within a poem, that consists always of four lines. The rhyming patterns include aabb, abab, abba, abcb, aaba, or aaaa ....
", and is used to describe a Persian quatrain, or its derivative form in English and other languages. The plural form of the word, ruba?iyat (??????? - often anglicised rubaiyat), is used to describe a collection of such quatrains.

There are a number of possible rhyme scheme
Rhyme scheme

A rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhyming lines in a poem or song. It is usually referred to by using Letter s to indicate which lines rhyme. In other words, it is the pattern of end rhymes or lines....
s to the rubaiyat form, e.g. AABA, AAAA. . In Persian verse, a ruba'i is visually only two lines long, its rhyme falling at the middle and end of the lines.

Etymology

The word "ruba?i" is derived from the same Arabic root as "arba?a", meaning "four".

Ruba'i in English

The verse form AABA as used in English verse is known as the Rubaiyat Quatrain due to its use by Edward FitzGerald
Edward FitzGerald (poet)

Edward Marlborough FitzGerald was an England writer, best known as the poet of the first and most famous English translation of Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam....
  in his famous 1859 translation, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is the title that Edward FitzGerald gave to his translation of a selection of poems, originally written in the Persian language and of which there are about a thousand, attributed to Omar Khayy?m , a Persian literature, Mathematics in medieval Islam and Astronomy in medieval Islam....
. Algernon Charles Swinburne
Algernon Charles Swinburne

Algernon Charles Swinburne was an English poet, controversial in his own day....
, one of the first admirers of FitzGerald's translation of Khayyam's
Omar Khayyám

Omar Khayyam was a Persian peoples polymath: Islamic mathematics, Iranian philosophy, Islamic astronomy and above all Persian literature.He has also become established as one of the major mathematicians and astronomers of the medieval period....
 medieval Persian verses
Persian literature

Persian literature spans two and a half millennia, though much of the pre-Islamic material has been lost. Its sources has been within historical greater Iran including present-day Iran as well as reigions of Central Asia where the Persian language has been the national language through history....
, was the first to imitate the stanza form, which subsequently became popular and was used widely, as in the case of Robert Frost's
Robert Frost

Robert Lee Frost was an American poet. He is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech....
 1922 poem "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" is a poetry written in 1922 by Robert Frost, and published in 1923 in his New Hampshire volume. and personification are prominent in the work....
".

Fitzgerald’s translation became so popular by the turn of the century that hundreds of American humorists wrote parodies using the form and, to varying degrees, the content of his stanzas, including The Rubaiyat of Ohow Dryyam, The Rubaiyat of A Persian Kitten, The Rubaiyat of Omar Cayenne and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Jr.

In extended sequences of ruba'i stanzas, the convention is sometimes extended so that the unrhymed line of the current stanza becomes the rhyme for the following stanza. The structure can be made cyclical by linking the unrhymed line of the final stanza back to the first stanza: ZZAZ. These more stringent systems were not, however, used by FitzGerald in his Rubaiyat.

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