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"Look to the Rose..."

OMAR KHAYYA'M

THEATRE  COMPANY

"The theatre aspires to wake the soul by tender strokes of art,

to raise the genius and to mend the heart"

ALEXANDER POPE

PRESENTS

a

Celebration of Universal Genius

"Talk not of Genius baffled - Genius is the Master of Man

Genius does what it must - talent does what it can"

Robert Bulwer Lytton

Services

                              Edward FitzGerald's 'Suffolk Psalm'                                   One of Suffolk's greatest gifts to the world  

"your Golden Eastern lay"  Alfred, Lord Tennyson

A Persian Flying Magic Carpet of a poem...

           "I hear those voices that will not be drowned..." George Crabbe

                        "Light upon light"... Genius awakens Genius...                                        Awakens our intuition... inspires love for Unity, Truth,                       Harmony & Beauty  just as this poem fired T.S.Eliot's imagination         to become a poet like so many others & likewise fires countless artists, authors & song writers like Bob Dylan and ourselves to explore, experience & express our own Genius

"These two are not two,

Love has made them One

Amo Ergo Sum

And by Its Mystery, 

Each is no less, but more."

       Benjamin Britten

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A popular Edwardian song inspired by                    The Ruba'iya't

"When you see a rose - sing like a nightingale

When you see spiritual companions - tell them of Mysteries..."

     Jalal al-din Rumi

"True poems flee... Emily Dickinson

"Poetry is a sword of lightning ever unsheathed, which consumes the scabbard that would contain it"

                                                                              Percy B Shelley                                                                                  

 

 " If...a poem have a genius, it will force its own reception in the world;  for there's sweetness in good verse, which tickles even while it hurts."

John Dryden

"His Omar is a Masterpiece of Art" OscarWilde

"This immortal poem...the finest and most famous translation ever made..."

Professor Arthur Arberry

             "The first edition of the Ruba'iya't is a Masterpiece..."                   Professor Daniel Karlin

*   *   *

Wisdom opens doors...

                          Simple, subtle, penetrating and profound...                         "I hear those voices that will not be drowned" George Crabbe

                       -   WE ARE PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE   -                                             ongoing lectures/recitals include Scotland's Stories NOW - livestreamed from The Edinburgh Book Festival Saturday 20th August 2022 at 1.00pm. Past lectures and recitals include the 'Spirit of  The Rose' Sunday November 7th 2021 at 2.00pm in The Bull Inn, Woodbridge, Suffolk: Tickets www.spiritofwoodbridge.com                                                               INTERNATIONAL AGATHA CHRISTIE FESTIVAL - Torquay

www.iacf-uk.org

BURY ST EDMUND'S LITERATURE FESTIVAL - www.burylitfest.com  

 

and why not book your event now tailor made to your requirements, from a full theatre stage multimedia presentation with music, photographic & archive film projection to semi-staged or a simple lectern presentation

Have you seen https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-57683638  about The Great Omar  ?

" There are many events in the womb of time which will be delivered"  William Shakespeare

"Come, my friends, Tis not too late to seek a newer world...for my purpose holds to sail beyond the sunset"

from Ulysses by Alfred Lord Tennyson

                      "Great Ships ask Deep Waters"                    P.s Have you seen the excellent film 'Life on the Deben' including a cameo on E.F.G ? it is                                                 available from  www.lifeonthedeben.com 

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Three amusing parodies

 "Divine Light strikes the soul broad awake"

           Evelyn Underhill

 

"With the uttering of Hu - the   Reality unveils Itself...that the Traveller may Know 'The Secret'"

                   Uftade

"O! haste my flight from all material forms that i may drink of Perfect Beauty's streams and rise to Mystic Union with its fount for thus my nature shall be all Divine and Deity in Deity exult"

             Thomas Taylor

 

 

     Welcome

    "These are the stars which poets, as they can

Image for us to stir us in our sleep,

That some may dream, and some perhaps awake."

Francis Engleheart

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                          'FitzOmar'  by  Fougasse

                                

"Know yourself and in that Instant

 Know the Other and see therefore

             Orient and Occident

    Cannot be parted for evermore"

              Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"Symbolism is the universal language"

                Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton

          Where Genius awakens Genius...

        Author - actor - audience

         Light...  flight... delight

Explore, experience & enjoy one of the world's most enlightening, entertaining, exciting & satisfying poems ever written...

"Taste is the feminine of Genius"  E.F.G

     As Edward FitzGerald 1809 - 1883 of Woodbridge in Suffolk UK absorbed the  genius of Plato, Virgil, Homer, the Bible, Omar Khayya'm 1048 -1131 Hafiz, Sa'di, Jami, Rumi & especially Attar's magnificent The Canticle of the Bird's, Dante, G. Herbert, William's Shakespeare & Blake (owning a rare copy of 'Songs of Innocence' printed by W. Blake himself) John's Milton, Dryden and Keats, Goethe, Shelley, Burns et al                      so Divine Light Awakened Itself to Itself... awakening his own poetic genius, thus shaping the                        unique & enigmatic masterpiece                            The Ruba'iya't of Omar Khayya'm 

A Light trigger... this work affirms the Universality of  Soul amidst The Unity of Spirit or 'Oneness' as all soul's mastered by the Spirit see it... just as BBC One share's it & this wise, funny but challenging poem - our universal story has gone on to sell millions of copies around the world ever since it was published in 1859.

WHY has it struck such a chord & continues to do so ? the simple answer is - Identity - Light attracts Light so Like attracts Like, thus Genius awakens Genius... activating the innate Universal First Principles of Harmony, Truth and Beauty within our souls, thus intuitively uniting us all on all levels of our being, across time, countries, faiths & dimensions speaking to us wherever we are at, lifting us ever higher and deeper into the greater picture of Divine Unity.     A timeless Spiritual Classic as classified by T.S.Eliot likewise inspiring him to his own poetic vocation - such is self-evident to some, but not to others, hence a need to not only read it quietly, meditate on it, read books about and around it, but also to listen - hear it read / shared in a communal situation, focussing, lifting our understanding from the literal, through the allegorical & symbolic to the moral - thence to the Mystical.

Listen to its inner dynamic of thesis, antithesis and synthesis speaking to us about the Great Circle of a day, year... the lifetime of all creation & such will fire your imagination satisfying our communal thirst for the Infinite 'Paradise e'now' the Realization of Reality             " I shall be satisfied when I awake in thy likeness"

                                       Psalm 17 v15

" ALL THE MYSTIC'S  COME FROM THE SAME COUNTRY AND SPEAK THE SAME                                               LANGUAGE"  William Blake

   " Light upon Light"                                 "this Light is Love"

        Qur'an 24:35                                     Mother Julian of Norwich

                    "ONE EQUAL LIGHT"

                       John Donne

      "When... the Divine Light penetrates the soul, it is united with God, as Light     with Light. Anyone who enters the soul's ground, no longer cares about the past      or the future. They are aware only of the present moment, which alone is shot                      through with the Divine Light...where time touches Eternity" 

                                                     Meister Eckhart                

 

            "There is ONE Light that shines beyond all things...

                 This IS the Light that shines in our Heart"

                                 Chandogya Upanishad

         

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The front cover of a first edition of Edward FitzGerald's 2nd book 'Polonius' published in                    1852 by William Pickering of London and printed by J.Childs in Suffolk

  "A single Alif were the clue..!"
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       Omar Khayya'm & Edward FitzGerald - A Celebration of Universal Genius at Woodbridge Library on 18th September, 2018   "Excellent"  Tim Cornford    F.O.W.L

             Edward FitzGerald 
       'High thinking - plain living'
                Old Fitz's Motto
      
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"INSPIRING" Jan Pulsford

       A lecture and recital at Drinkstone Village Hall, Suffolk
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Part of the exhibition table in the Ballroom             of  Torre Abbey, Torquay for the International Agatha Christie Festival 2019

              "Wonderful"  James Tyson

                         Artistic Director

About

 

"through the Dusk an An Angel Shape..."

Edward FitzGerald's Bookplate incorporating the family coat of arms as designed by his friend William Makepeace Thackeray

Portfolio
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 E.F.G's Broadwood piano currently on show   at Christchurch Mansion in Ipswich, Suffolk

Contact
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