Edward FitzGerald, the British scholar, poet and translator, was born March 31 1809 in Bredfield, near Woodbridge, Suffolk, Britain; he died June 14 1883, Merton, Norfolk.
EditLife and Career
His parents were Mary Frances FitzGerald and John Purcell. Edward FitzGerald's original name was Edward Purcell, but when he as nine his mother inherited her father's enormous fortune and the family adopted his name and arms. The family owned estates in both England and Ireland. Edward FitzGerald was the seventh child in a family of eight. He went to King Edward VI Grammar School in Bury St Edmunds, and then he studied at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he developed close literary friendships with William Thakeray. He later also developed friendships with Thomas Carlyle and Alfred Tennyson. He left Cambridge in 1830 and spent a short time in Paris. He returned to Suffolk and made his home there. He lived for sixteen years in a cottage on his family's estate at Boulge in Suffolk. His first publication was The Meadows of Spring, a collection of verses which appeared in Hone's Year Book in 1831.
His parents separated, and while his father stayed on the family estate in Suffolk, his mother lived grand life in London. Edward FitzGerald stayed in London at times and escorted her to dinners and dances. However, he did not like this kind of life and began travelling around the country and visiting friends. In 1832 he met and fell in love with the 16-year-old William Kenworthy Browne on a steamship to Tenby. They spent many summers together fishing on the river Ouse. However, in 1844 William Kenworthy Browne married. Edward FitzGerald's Euphranor: A Dialogue on Youth in 1851 was a comment on English education, but also a glorification of William Kenworthy Browne. In 1849 Edward FitzGerald published a biography of his friend the Quaker poet Bernard Barton. On his death bed, Bernard Barton had asked Edward FitzGerald to look after his daughter Lucy, and in 1856 Edward FitzGerald and Lucy Barton were married. However, the marriage only lasted a few months. He studied Spanish with his friend, the linguist Edward Cowell, and in 1853 he published six plays by Pedro Calderon de la Barca. These were not liked by the critics but they were popular with the reading public so he published two more. Edward Cowell also inspired Edward FitzGerald's interest in Persian poetry and he published his version of Salaman and Absal of Jami in 1856. He is best known for his free poetic translation, from a pencil copy made for him by Edward Cowell, in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, the astronomer-poet of Persia. He first published his translation anonymously in 1859 with 75 quatrains. A second revised edition in 1868 contained 110 quatrains. Then an 1872 edition contained 101 quatrains.
In 1859, William Kenworthy Browne was fatally injured in a riding accident, and afterwards, Edward FitzGerald went to live in Lowestoft. He wrote to William Kenworthy Browne's widow saying that he walked along the beach at night 'longing for some fellow to accost me who might give me some promise of filling up a very vacant place in my heart'. At the age of fifty he fell in love with a 24-year-old fisherman, Joseph Fletcher, who was called Posh. Edward FitzGerald had a boat, a herring-lugger, built for him which he named Meum & Tuum, Mine and Yours. The relationship ended when Edward FitzGerald became tired of Joseph Fletcher's drunkenness and his demands for money. As he became old his eyesight worsened and he got local lads to read to him. He wrote to a friend: "I am an idle fellow of a very ladylike disposition, and my friendships are more like loves, I think." The character George Warrington in William Thackeray's The History of Pendennis is partly based on Edward FitzGerald.
EditWork
The Meadows of Spring, 1831, a collection of verse.Euphranor: A Dialogue on Youth, 1851.Polonius: A Collection of Wise Saws and Modern Instances, 1852.Six Dramas of Calderón, 1853, translations from the Spanish.Salámán and Absál, 1856, Persian verse.The Rubáiyát of ‘Omar Khayyám, 1859, fourth revision 1879.Such Stuff as Dreams are Made of, 1865, a translation of the play La Vida es Sueño by Pedro Calderón de la Barca.The Mighty Magician, 1865, a translation of the play El Mágico Prodigioso by Pedro Calderón de la Barca.Agamemnon: A Tragedy taken from Aeschylus, 1869, a translation of a play.The Downfall and Death of King Oedipus, 1881, translations of two plays by Sophocles.A Bird’s-eye View of Faríd-Uddín Attar’s Bird-Parliament, published posthumously in 1889.Sea Words and Phrases along the Suffolk Coast.Letters and Literary Remains, edited by W. A. Wright, 1889.Collected Letters, edited by A. M. Terhune and A. B. Terhune, 1980.
EditBibliography
James Blyth, (1908), “Edward Fitzgerald and Posh”.Rupert Croft-Cooke, (1967), “Feasting With Panthers”.EllimanandRoll, (1986), pages 76-77.Robert B. Martin, (1985), “With Friends Possessed: A Life of Edward FitzGerald”, London: Faber.J. Richardson, (1960), “Edward FitzGerald”.Alfred M. Terhune, (1947), “The Life of Edward FitzGerald”, London: Oxford University Press.