Constant cycle in nature and existential dread in Shakespeare's Hamlet and Khayyam's Rubaiyat

This study endeavours to present a comparative analysis of Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat and William Shakespeare's Hamlet, aiming to demonstrate the similar approaches both authors adopt in examining issues such as the human condition, the sense of being thrown into existence, the transitory nature of life, and the enduring material cycles in nature. Despite the significant temporal and geographical differences between Khayyam and Shakespeare, it can be argued that they draw from a shared intellectual heritage rooted in ancient Greek thought. Through Islamic scholars like al-Farabi and Avicenna, the influence of Hellenistic philosophy might be observed in Khayyam's metaphysical and sceptical reasoning. Similarly, the intellectual climate shaped by the Renaissance—a revival of Greek and Roman classics— permeates Shakespeare's works. These cultural and intellectual contexts not only influenced both writers but also contributed to the emergence of shared existential imagery in Rubaiyat and Hamlet. Objects such as skulls, wine jugs, beer barrels, stoppers, handles, and dust, recurrent in both works, serve as symbols of mortality awareness and ultimately evoke a profound sense of futility. The notion that these objects might contain remnants of a once glorious king or a deceased lover astounds both authors, offering a deep awareness of death's inevitability, nature's indifferent mechanisms, and the transient nature of existence. This awareness occasionally manifests in a tone of irony, functioning as a grim forewarning of their own material demise. Consequently, existential conditions such as "thrownness," "absurdity," "anxiety," and "alienation"—concepts central to existentialism—are discernible in both works. In conclusion, this study compares Rubaiyat and Hamlet through the lens of existentialism, highlighting how these two works, centuries before philosophers like Søren Kierkegaard and Martin Heidegger, addressed similar existential dilemmas in remarkably similar ways. It also emphasizes the possibility of both works drawing from a shared intellectual tradition. Keywords: William Shakespeare, Omar Khayyam, Hamlet, Rubaiyat, existentialism, death, existential anxiety, alienation