Harry Ransom CenterThe University of Texas at Austin

Using the Collaborative Rubáiyát A web exhibition accompanying The Persian Sensation: The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám in the West at the Harry Ransom Center

Welcome to the Collaborative Rubáiyát. This page will explain how to use this web exhibition to do the following:

1. Read FitzGerald's five editions of Khayyám's Rubáiyát in their entirety
2. Compare the same stanza across different editions
3. Read individual stanzas of the poem from any edition
4. Read annotations added by other readers of the poem
5. Add your own comments and tags to the poem

A tutorial video is also available.

Edition view

Links to the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth editions of FitzGerald's text are always available on the far right side of the screen. If you click on one of these links, the full text of that edition of the poem will appear, separated into numbered stanzas that run along the left side of the screen.

You can examine any stanza in more detail by clicking the links below it. For each edition there is also a “word cloud” in the center column that lists all of the words in the edition, weighted by the number of times that they occur. Clicking on one or more of the words in the word cloud will highlight all of their occurrences in the edition.

Stanza comparison

The compare link under each stanza's header in the edition view will take you to a page on which you can read the stanza you selected and compare it with other versions of that stanza included in the other four editions of the poem. Because FitzGerald added stanzas in later editions, the same stanza may have different numbers in different editions. In some cases, stanzas may not exist in every edition of the poem, due to the changes FitzGerald made to the text.

The image above shows the changes made to the first stanza in the second edition. In this example, the first edition (1859) is the basis of comparison, and the differing words in the second edition (1868) are highlighted in red on a yellow background. We could switch the view to make the 1868 version the basis of comparison by clicking the compare link under its header.

Stanza view

There will also be either a view or an annotate link under each stanza header, depending on which edition you are viewing. Currently only the fifth edition is open for annotation, so for the first four editions, you will see a view link under the header.

The view link will take you to a page displaying the selected stanza and any supplementary material. You can move forward or backward through the poem using the arrow buttons below the stanza, and you can jump to another edition using the links above the arrow buttons.

The fifth edition is open for user annotation, and it will therefore show an annotate link instead of the view link. Stanzas that have already been annotated will also have two boxes to the right of the links, as you can see in the image below.

Following the color scheme used throughout the application, the blue box indicates the number of comments that users have added to this stanza, and the red box indicates the number of tags.

Annotation view

When you click the annotate link from the fifth edition, you will be taken to a page displaying the stanza with users' comments below it, and with other users' tags in the center column to its right.

A “tag” is a label that you can use to mark a word or series of words that interest you. A user might mark an instance of metaphor with “metaphor,” or tag a famous passage with “well-known.” Tags may not contain spaces, but may contain underscores, hyphens, or other characters. You may use tags that previous readers have created or create your own.

The tags are arranged in a “tag cloud”, which is much like the word cloud in the edition view. Tags are arranged alphabetically, and tags that are used more frequently in the stanza will appear larger.

Clicking a tag in the tag cloud will show all phrases in the stanza that have been given this tag, as well as which users have added the tag, and when.

You can also highlight the phrases that have been commented on by other users.

Adding tags or comments

If you are accessing the Collaborative Rubáiyát from a computer outside the Ransom Center galleries, you will be need to register for an account in order to leave comments or add tags. Once you have done this and have logged on, simply use your mouse to select a range of text in the stanza. This will cause two new boxes to appear—one to the right of the stanza, and one below it. If you are in the Ransom Center galleries, you can add tags or comments as a guest without creating a new account.

You can type one of more words into the tag creation box to add them to your selected phrase, or you can type a longer observation or question into the comment creation box. You can also reply to another user's comment by clicking the link that will appear under the comment if you are logged in.

Other pages and features

There are many other things you can do with the application—you can view all instances of a tag across all stanzas, view all tags and comments added by another user, or manage your own tags or comments. You can always return to this introduction by clicking the “Getting started” link from the sidebar on the right.