Illustrated Rubaiyat

[Yugoboy]

(03-08-2011 03:16 PM)ElectronChaser Wrote:  I have been reading through these and honestly cant make heads or tails of most of it. Literature is not a strong point of mine.

It's poetry translated from Arabic. The culture is Muslim, but as you can tell from some of the verses, it was a more open-minded liberal Muslim, much like what was in Cordoba in the 1200s-1300s.
The imagery is really potent in places and the Rubaiyat really lends itself to illustration.
If you go to the entire book on Gutenberg, there's an introduction that might help. Seriously, about half the book (and 60-70% of the words) is Fitzgerald's introduction.

Like I said above, if a quatrain inspires you in any way, go with it. You don't have to illustrate an entire quatrain's imagery. If one line, or one word gets you 'shoppin' that's cool...