The US is set to mount an exhibition of Persian manuscripts and translations of poems by the 11th-century Persian poet, Omar Khayyam.

The Persian Sensation: The 'Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam in the West will display 200 items related to Khayyam's rubaiyat, a collection of quatrains (four-line poems).

Khayyam is best known in the West through Edward Fitzgerald's translations of his poetry.

Early Persian manuscripts, handmade books, the first translation of the poems into a Western language, miniature editions, the Elihu Vedder (American painter and book illustrator) edition and documents confirming the loss of a jeweled edition, shipped on the Titanic will be among the items, to be displayed.

According to the Harry Ransom Center website, the items will be showcased in four sections, namely The Poet's Rubaiyat, The Cult of Omar, Everybody's Rubaiyat and In Search of Khayyam.

The event will also screen a documentary by the Ransom Center Collections assistant Jill Morena, who recorded the influence of Khayyam on four Iranians, a literature professor, a carpet-seller/poet, a shopkeeper and a filmmaker.

"During the first decades of the 20th century, the Rubaiyat made its way into nearly every facet of people's lives,” said co-curator of the exhibition and Rubaiyat scholar Michelle Kaiserlian.

“The exhibition documents the popularity of 'Rubaiyat' parodies, written on subjects ranging from courtship to automobiles, and from religion to politics. The 'Rubaiyat' became a tool to explore both the thrills and the anxieties of modern life,” she added.

"A century ago, the average American and certainly every poet writing in English could quote stanzas of this poem verbatim,” said Ransom Center's curator of British and American literature, Molly Schwartzburg, adding, “The extraordinary range of materials in this exhibition offer a glimpse of something that has been lost from the culture.

The Persian Sensation: The 'Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam in the West will be held from Feb. 3 to Aug. 2, 2009 at the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas.

TE/HGH