Harivansh Rai Bachchan's early poetic works and Omar Khayyam's poetry

This article is focused on Harivansh Rai Bachchan’s early poetry, inspired by Omar Khayyam’s Rubayyat. The tree poems that brought Bachchan critical acclaim - Madhushala, Madhubala and Madhukalash all feature wine imagery borrowed from Khayyam’s poetry. The main goal of the present article is to establish to what extent these poems were influenced by Khayyam’s poetry based mostly on studies by Indian and Russian literary scholars, as well as on Bachchan’s autobiography.