Talk:Edward FitzGerald (poet)

Page move
I moved the page so the title would use the same spelling of FitzGerald as the body of the article. Trontonian

Marlborough?
I have a problem with "Edward Marlborough FitzGerald." The naming convention calls for the use of the most common name, not the most complete or the most correct. His name is almost universally given simply as "Edward FitzGerald" in e.g. the Oxford Book of English Verse, published editions of the Rubaiyat, etc.

I see that in Google Books there are [http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&q=%22edward+fitzgerald%22+omar&btnG=Search&as_brr=0 1 - 100 with 3900 pages on "edward fitzgerald" omar. (2.31 seconds)] compared to [http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&q=%22edward+marlborough+fitzgerald%22+omar&btnG=Search&as_brr=0 Books 1 - 2 with 2 pages on "edward marlborough fitzgerald" omar. (0.03 seconds)]. I believe I'm going to move this back to "Edward FitzGerald (poet)" after all, unless someone has a convincing reason not to. Dpbsmith (talk) 22:59, 14 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Nobody spoke up, so I've done it. Dpbsmith (talk) 15:36, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

Gay or not?
We have to keep out the gay lobby again. This is not a place to spread rumors about dead poets. To say that someone thought that he was gay is just outrageous. The mistake has been made time and time again about persian poetry or it's translations. the only point to remember is that in persian there is no distinction between male and female (no pronoun/adjective for a specific gender). I'll remove the paragraph.74.57.251.217 16:05, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

The fact that Persian does not have different words for "he" and "she" has nothing at all to do with FitzGerald's homosexuality, which is a matter of historical record. Your fantasies about the "gay lobby" are amusing. I have been interested in FitzGerald for years, not from any sexual angle, but simply from the poetic side. In the first place, his Rubaiyat were the first poetry I ever liked. In the second place, my years in Iran taught me that Persians looked down on Khayyam (other than his fame as a mathematician and astronomer). So why were Fitzgerald's translations of lame Persian poetry so celebrated? In 2001, I began digging into this question in earnest, and finally concluded that FitzGerald had really pulled off a hat trick: his translations were better poetry than the original!

Then, a few nights ago, I was reading Hyde's book ("The Love That Dared Not Speak its Name"), and I was surprised to discover that FitzGerald was gay.

If you want to do battle with some "gay lobby," you should probably begin with H. Montgomery Hyde, a "normal heterosexual."

And, I should finally add, sometimes the "gay lobby" is RIGHT. Walt Whitman as a "normal heterosexual," anyone? Kit Marlowe? Michelangelo?

So now you go off and figure out who "we" are, and why "we" have to keep "the gay lobby" out. I don't think I have ever heard a more impassioned denial of scholarly objectivity.
 * Are we to take the insinuations and dubious assertions of Robert Irwin and H. Montgomery Hyde as factual truth? It is a commonality of contemporary media communications to try to legitimize and normalize the above-referenced unnatural behavior. Did FitzGerald ever make a statement about his personal activities. Were there any eyewitnesses? The Latin rule affirmanti incumbit probatio means that it is incumbent on the person who makes an affirmative, positive assertion to provide sure and certain proof. Why does this Wikipedia article contain unproven allegations about FitzGerald? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.19.14.27 (talk) 20:46, 31 December 2006 (UTC).


 * No, we're not to take them as factual truth, we're to take them as verifiable published sources. Please reread the verifiability policy. If you don't believe what they say is true, what you need to do is find and cite some published sources that say that FitzGerald was not gay and add them to the article, which is the right thing to do according to the neutrality policy.


 * Assertions of FitzGerald's homosexuality are traceable to published sources which are cited in the article. Statements supported by published sources should not be removed. It may or may not be a fact that FitzGerald was homosexual, but it is a fact that H. Montgomery Hyde said that FitzGerald was homosexual. Dpbsmith (talk) 21:14, 31 December 2006 (UTC)


 * P. S. With regard to the factual question, I first learned of FitzGerald's sexuality in the introduction, by one Dick Davis, to the Penguin edition of the Rubaiyat (1989; ISBN 0140586067. This is a popular edition for a general readership. The introduction takes FitzGerald's homosexuality as a given, saying things like "His homosexuality would have been confirmed--if confirmation were needed--by the grotesque mess of his marriage..." I've known and loved the Rubaiyat for years, and to tell the truth I was rather shocked by the suggestion that FitzGerald was gay. But clearly this is not a fringe theory. Its appearance in the article is appropriate. Dpbsmith (talk) 22:31, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Because FitzGerald's marriage was a "mess," Dick Davis makes his conclusion. We are to accept it because it was published and therefore supposedly verifiable. Now, against all logic and reason, it is incumbent upon the person who denies the assertion to provide proof. In this immature and perverted manner, the intentions and purposes of the above-mentioned "lobby" are furthered.
 * No, you are not to accept what Dick Davis says. You are to accept that Dick Davis does say that, and that it is good evidence that many scholars accept it, too, and that, right or wrong, true or false, it is a mainstream point of view about FitzGerald.
 * Nobody is talking about proof. I am talking about citing sources, which is something completely different. Readers read the article. It says "So-and-so says FitzGerald was homosexual." Readers decide for themselves whether they think so-and-so is reliable or not.
 * If FitzGerald's being homosexual is a nutty assertion by a fringe "gay lobby," then it is almost certain that someone, somewhere will have published something saying so. The National Review. Focus on the Family. Rick Santorum. Whatever. All you need to do is find it and cite it, just as other editors have cited their sources.
 * They did their homework. If you want to put something in the article saying FitzGerald was not homosexual, go do yours. Dpbsmith (talk) 02:55, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Just for thought: a closeted homosexual would be unlikely to reveal the truth about himself. He would be much more likely to try "the marriage cure" -- as FitzGerald did, on November 4, 1856 -- and then separate in 1857. The "personal statements" which are available to us are his long and passionate friendships with other men. I did mention that there is an entire book published about FitzGerald's long friendship with the fisherman "Posh" Fletcher; I believe that may count as an "eyewitness."

Well, I am awaiting the arrival of that book, as well as FitzGerald's "Letters and Literary Remains." As the other comments point out, we are not dealing with absolute proof here: we are citing scholarly sources. But if someone wanted to get into the issue of absolute proof, that person would probably do well to dredge up some item indicating heterosexual passion on the part of FitzGerald, no matter how small that item might be. By the way (off topic), FitzGerald's translation of Attar's "Bird Parliament" really is a delight known to very few (so far). JaafarAbuTarab 15:01, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia is a good medium for the furtherance of purposes for certain interest groups. All one has to do is to find, in print, allegations that something is "well known" or "most probable" or in accordance with the current "mainstream point of view," whether there is any truth to it or not. Then, we can accept attributions as "given", without further discussion. We then are privy to FitzGerald's inner feelings and know for certain with whom he was enamoured, not merely as a dear friend. However, it was once well known and given that the earth stood still as the sun revolved around it. This was most probable, if not absolutely certain, and in accordance with the current mainstream point of view, with good evidence. But, the mainstream point of view is easily manipulated, as can be readily seen in today's culture. So here at Wikipedia we are not concerned with proven truths. We are concerned with mere printed assertions. It is now incumbent on anyone who denies these assertions to deny them only through published counter-assertions.
 * "So here at Wikipedia we are not concerned with proven truths. We are concerned with mere printed assertions. It is now incumbent on anyone who denies these assertions to deny them only through published counter-assertions." Yes, you are correct. That's the verifiability policy. The only incorrect thing is the word "now." Verifiability has been policy for, at the very least, the three years I've been involved, and it is part of the neutrality policy.


 * These policies do not make Wikipedia "a good medium for the furtherance of purposes for certain interest groups." On the contrary, they insure that all points of view held by substantial numbers of people are represented. It is usually people who are insistent that one point of view is the only truth that get upset when other editors refuse to allow conflicting points of view to be suppressed.


 * But you have to do your homework. There's no use giving your personal views on the talk page and you certainly won't be allowed to put them in the article.


 * If you have an objection to what's in this article, then find and cite a good source that represents what you believe is the truth. It's not hard to do. If something is widely believed, someone will have published something about it. I was once challenged by someone who believed "the sky is blue" as an example of something that couldn't be referenced. Within ten minutes, I was able to find:


 * "the blue sky is so commonplace that it is taken for granted"


 * So, stop whining and put up or shut up. If there are a lot of people who think that FitzGerald's homosexuality is a fabrication of the "gay lobby," it should be possible to find a published source that says so.


 * If you find any reasonably good citation... even if it's in a conservative publication, like the ones I noted above... it can go in the article and I for one will personally work to make sure it stays in the article.


 * If you think the article needs to be fixed, I'm giving you good advice on how you can actually get it fixed. Don't bite my finger, look where I'm pointing. Dpbsmith (talk) 23:03, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

'ENCYCLOPEDIA OF GOSSIP!!!!'


 * What is this? encyclopedia of GOSSIP.
 * Have you ever heard about " the man who saw the man who saw the man who saw the man... who saw the man, who saw the bear."?
 * The accuracy of what you are saying is that much. I don't think that because some so called "scholars" speculated about something, to make sensation or present some original work (in the sens of marginal) that one has to take what they say for granted.
 * And because others commented on those commenteries does not built a fact. To say that someone said he was so and so and now prove the contrary, is to yield to the lowest level of human culture. Besides you can not prove a negative affirmation, especially when the atmosphere has been contaminated with such speculations.
 * In the end, such "speculations" or "insistance on such speculations" can only come from a lobby group which has something to defend, but not necessarily the truth.
 * This guy lived in the 1850's and the article says "FitzGerald's homosexuality has been well-known since at least 1970". That, in itself proves that something's wrong there.
 * If as you say this is the rule in wikipedia, then we need a general discusion to change it. The principle rule which overrides any other rule should be Acurracy. I doubt that you can prove the accuracy of what you (or your scholar friends) advance.


 * As for the person who doesn't sign his comments, and has been in Iran:
 * check it out again. I don't know where you have been, but khayyam is one of the most revered poets in Iran. If really you where in Iran, my guess is that you where not much in contact with people, which is a pity if it was during years ....and please avoid such pseudo-arguments in the futur.70.81.100.69 03:29, 10 January 2007 (UTC)


 * We don't say they're the truth. We never say anything in Wikipedia is "the truth." We say "thus-and-such published sources says thus-and-such." Readers can decide whether or not they think a particular scholar is trustworthy. Dpbsmith (talk) 16:59, 10 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Point #1: Omar Khayyam is NOT "one of the most revered poets in Iran," not unless your list of revered poets is extremely long. The Persians admire Hafez, Saadi, Rumi, Firdowsi, etc.  This is not a pseudo-argument; it is a fact.  And I will put my knowledge of Farsi (and Arabic) up against yours any day of the week.


 * Point #2: Yes, the first rule should be accuracy. I have argued this point on other pages, pointing out the huge number of "scholars" who continue to pretend that Walt Whitman was heterosexual.  Perhaps it will confuse you that I also argue, on other pages, that William Shakespeare was entirely heterosexual.


 * But Point #2 is not Wikipedia policy. If you want a general discussion to change it, then go for it.


 * There's a lot of other nonsense in your comments. It is only recently that we have come to understand the homosexuality of Michelangelo.


 * What I really DON'T understand is why this issue is so important to you.


 * And, by the way, you don't sign your comments. JaafarAbuTarab 16:29, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

70.81.100.69, why do you find it so difficult to find and cite a reliable source that says FitzGerald was not homosexual? I've invited you to do so, and I've explained that Wikipedia's neutrality policy would provide strong support for including such a reference in the article. Finding and citing such a source is a way in which you, personally, can fix the problem you say this article has. Dpbsmith (talk) 16:57, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, you didn't ask me, but I'm glad you didn't challenge me to find a scholarly source maintaining the homosexuality of Beethoven, or the heterosexuality of William Burroughs. After all, we must allow for the possibility that scholarly sources may have SOME contact with reality, and that our nameless interlocutor simply can't find anything.


 * By reliable source, I meant a source meeting Wikipedia's guidelines for reliable sources, which is much broader than "scholarly source." I'm not sure quite where you're going with Beethoven and Burroughs, but although I don't always cite sources, to date I've never had any trouble coming up with one when challenged.


 * I suspect that sources before 1970 fail to mention FitzGerald's homosexuality, not because they didn't know about it, but merely because it could not be discussed in print. I believe firmly that if there is really any serious doubt about his homosexuality, someone, somewhere will have published something about it that can be quoted. I mean, I can find sources for all sorts of fringe theories. My guess is the same as your: there's no such source because there's no serious question about his sexual orientation. But I could easily be wrong. Dpbsmith (talk) 18:56, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Can you imagine, walking into a library, and saying "This is all just gossip!" JaafarAbuTarab 18:21, 10 January 2007 (UTC)


 * First off, I didn’t say give me your name. What I meant was that you even didn’t sign with your IP address to be able to respond to you personally. As for me, I’m not a member, for that will be one password too many.


 * Second, I’m a Persian and I know my fellow compatriots and Khayyam is certainly one of most revered poets among those you cited i.e. Hafez, Saadi, Rumi, Firdowsi. Of course each one has a special place in the heart of Iranians.


 * And your knowldege of Persian language can not help you in this argument.Why? Because it can not even equate the knowledge of a native persian. And to find out the ineptitude you’re saying about all Iranians, ask yourself how many Iranians have you met during the years you supposedly lived there? How many? One? Ten? Fifty? A hundred? My guess is; at best ten with whom you could have had a real conversation, and I’m sure you didn’t really understand what they told you (maybe you understood litteraly but that’s not what I’m talking about) and you are extrapolating your misconception over 70 million people. Which basically shows you just say something to fill up the vacuum.


 * And I think that seems to be the main rule in wikipedia; there is vacuum there, well let’s call him gay and insist on it, no one will pay attention anyway and with time we will make it the truth. Or as your friend Dpbsmith said, we are not looking for the truth (at least he is honest…) but the truth has become the result of a democratic vote among those who call themselves “Scholars”.


 * And then after having stated your point of view on most of the points I raised in my comments, you end up by saying :” There's a lot of other nonsense in your comments”. Now, this sentence by itself equates in dishonesty your sentence :”my years in Iran taught me that Persians looked down on Khayyam” and shows how you want to present your twisted viewpoints and magnify them. After having said what you said about my comments, you say that there are a lot of other nonsense in my comments. And if there are other nonsenses, you can disscus them, but to say there are a lot of other nonsense is a derogatory tactical method to sweep under the carpet everything you can not respond to.


 * And finally you say “What I don’t understand is why this issue is so important to you.”
 * Wake up dude, this is a disscusion page. Now when you bring up such a question, that means you are short of any reasonable argument. I return to you the question. If it's not important, then let's not mention it, we are not sure anyway. how about that?
 * I think I was very clear in my comments that unless you want to call it encyclopedia of gossip this site should be the place where the factual truth is reported. Why is that so? Because we can not rely on people’s viewpoints, be it scholarly or otherwise, for any mistake on internet will spread a million fold or even more, and we owe it to the people who read it and to the people dead or alive who are subject to be presented on this page.

70.81.100.69 02:12, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I didn't bring up any question. YOU did. You have been carping and whining about the simple truth for so long that I am really tempted to believe that you are Iranian, although you are probably just a troll. After all, if you were a genuine, real Iranian, you would have mumbled this fact long ago. You still have not contemplated the simple fact that -- IF Edward FitzGerald was gay, how would you deal with it? What is your hangup with FitzGerald? Actually, I probably don't want to know. Khodahafez. From now on you will be speaking to the wind. JaafarAbuTarab 19:30, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Errors when comparing this article to Robert Martin's biography
I have already revised the paragraph about Fitzgerald's emotional life, and changed a few things in his early family history. But I just noticed another discrepancy today. The article says that EF was an Apostle, while Robert Martin is extremely clear about the fact that he was not. EF had many friends who were apostles, and had a lot of pleasure from that, but he was never invited to join. Fortunately, EF had two other lifelong friends in the same situation -- in the "general circle" but never invited to the Inner Sanctum. JaafarAbuTarab 15:52, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Edward FitzGerald's names
The article at present has FitzGerald's names as Edward Marlborough FitzGerald. We can find no evidence for the inclusion of Marlborough. The parish register of Bredfield, Suffolk has him registered as Edward Purcell, born 31st March 1809, baptised 7th May. The name change from Purcell to FitzGerald came 9 years later in 1818. None of the established biographers of EFG has any mention of the name Marlborough nor has the DNB article.

Unless someone has specific evidence of this additional name for EFG, we propose to edit it out of the article. Does anyone object?

Further information - 28/03/09. We have now established that Terhune's biography and letters mention an Edward Marlborough Fitzgerald (no capital G) with whom EFG was confused. Apparently he was a 'bad egg' who went up to Trinity Cambridge a couple of years before EFG and had a very chequered career - see Terhune Letters vol 1 p 605 note. So, on this evidence, we shall now delete the 'Marlborough' from the article. --Boulge (talk) 12:36, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

--Boulge (talk) 13:05, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Comment from article
Originally posted to the article by Special:Contributions/216.99.51.188 at 12:25, 2 August 2010 with this edit. The comment has been in the article until I removed it today. Avic ennasis  @ 06:04, 10 Iyar 5771 / 14 May 2011 (UTC)

Re the original source for Fitzgerald's work on the Rubiayat, the Editor G.F.Maine of my copy differs. The Rubbaiyat of Omar Khyyam New edition 1947 Edited by G.F.Maine, Printed in Great Britain, Collins Clear-type Press : London and Glascow, page 29 EDWARD FITZGERALD 2. The Rubbaiyat of Omar Khyyam, para 2 "Of this large and varied collection the Ouseley manuscript discovered by Coxwell among a mass of uncatalogues material in the Bodleian Library, in 1856 contains 158 quatrains written in purple ink on yellow paper and powdered in gold. It dates from A.D. 1460, some 337 years after the death of Omar. From the transciption made from Coxwell's copy of the original, Fitzgerald selected and compounded for his first edition of the Rubaiyat seventy-five quatrains, on which he worked for several years." p. 28 para 2 re. Coxwell, line 3 "but he left England in 1856 to become Professor of History at the new Presidency College, and soon after Principal atthe Sanscrit college, Calcutta, and did not return until 1867 when he was elected Professor of Sanscrit at Cambridge...." Page 23 indicates that "his father John Purcell was the son of a wealthy Irish doctor, and his mother Mary Frances FitzGerald Purcell was the daughter of one even more wealthy.." He was unlikely to be "Lord FitzGerald as I noted as a reference somewhere, his brother John was the eldest son.

Agnostic
From the article: "FitzGerald grew disenchanted with Christianity and eventually ceased to attend church ... FitzGerald was a lifelong agnostic". It should be clarified if he was indeed a church-attending agnostic, which would not be unusual, but the story of his disenchantment doesn't make much sense to me if he was an agnostic all along. 98.143.79.127 (talk) 20:00, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Please clarify it if it's unclear to you. We can then take it from there. Bmcln1 (talk) 20:23, 20 February 2020 (UTC)


 * I would fix it if I could, but I don't know if he was a lifelong agnostic or not. To be clear, "grew disenchanted with Christianity" does not seem to me to accurately describe a church-attending agnostic's decision to cease attending, which is what the article implies happened. 98.143.79.127 (talk) 20:22, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám translation notes
FitzGerald undertook the translation of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám after receiving a copy of the text found in the Bodleian Library by Cowell (or Coxwell in some sources). Cowell was a teacher of FitzGerald in Persian. There was also another text used with more quatrains that had been found in India by the British. FitzGerald from almost the beginning thought of his translation as his poem 'inspired' by Omar Khayyam, thus it's a 'loose' rendering of Khayyam's text. Khayyam's version is said by Persians or Iranian writers to be somewhat inferior as poetry to FitzGerald's version in English. On the other hand, Khayyam in Persian has subtle humor and wordplay that is largely lost in FitzGerald's rendering of the text. Thus FitzGerald largely wanted to render a version that said, "Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow (or all too soon) we die", which was one of FitzGerald's tropes. This rendering, while present in some of Khayyam's quatrains, is not so emphasized nor so repeated as it is in the FitzGerald "translation". FitzGerald's translation was never intended or thought of as any kind of popular work by FitzGerald himself. It was not at first noticed when first published in 1859, but by accident the Pre-Raphaelites found it and passed it around until it gained a wider audience. It was Charles Eliot Norton who brought the book to America and wrote the first review in 1869 in The North American Review. The book gained in popularity from the 1870s onward until it became almost a cliché by 1900 in the English speaking world. FitzGerald would have been astonished. Source: "Edward FitzGerald's The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", Chelsea House Publishers, 2004. Original Plaid (talk) 14:41, 27 December 2022 (UTC)