Khalil Gibran
A Lebanese Poet
Life of Khalil
Khalil Gibran’s Early Day
Khalil Gibran was born on January 6th, 1883 in Lebanon.
His father worked for an Ottoman officer.
This allowed Gibran to have priests visit him privately to teach him about the Bible and the Arabic and Syriac languages. He had no formal education in a school(in Lebanon), though.
Gibran and his family emigrated to the United States.
They lived in Boston at first.
Where It All Started
Khalil Gibran’s Teen Life
Gibran started his writing career in the United States.
His works are deep in religion and emotion.
Christianity, Islam, Sufism, and Hinduism
He studied art along with the English language.
He luckily got to be supervised by a Boston artist, Fred Holland Day.
Gibran’s mother didn’t want the west to influence him that much, so she sent him back to Lebanon.
- When he returned to Boston in 1902 (age 19) his brother Peter, his sister Sultana, and mother Kamila all died, leaving just him and his other sister, Marianna.
A Legacy Comes to an End
Gibran’s Later Life
Gibran met Mary Elizabeth Haskell, who introduced him to many different artists, teachers, and resources in Paris.
He started writing in English when he was 35 years of age.
His first English work was The Madman.
Became apart of the New York Pen League
Also known as the “Immigrant Poets”.
Gibran is mostly known for his book, The Prophet.
It is made up of 26 poetic essays.
It became popular in the 20th century and is now translated into 40 different languages.
Moved to New York and died April 10th, 1931.
He wanted to be buried in Lebanon, and he was.
Influences
- Emigration to the United States
Fred Holland Day
Lebanon Priests
Scenic views of Bsharri
Religion
Father’s political standing
Wanted nothing to do with Politics
Mary Elizabeth Haskell
- Poets in the New York Pen League
A Tear and A Smile (دمعة وابتسامة)
- Poem: Life experiences
- No speaker identified
- Diction shows education (high class)
- Larger Occasion (life)
- Emotions: Optimism and Pessimism
- Audience is everyone
- Mood: Positive and Assuring
- Repetition: "A tear and a smile", "heart", "joy", "life"
- Multiple contradictions show the equilibrium of life
- Theme: Everyone should experience the good and the bad
- Subject is not completely direct
- Tone: Liberating
Self Knowledge
- Poem: Live your life; Find your true self
- Speaker: Almustafa
- Audience: Townspeople or those who lack in self-knowledge
- Emotional State: Pondering and Absorbed in thought
- Immediate Occasion
- Description on self-knowledge
- Theme: Find your true self / Follow the path you want to go down
- Conveys message through comparisons
- Mood: Motivational
- Direct subject
- Single-subject, the poem is very focused
- Tone: Enlightening
Friendship
- Poem: Friendship is good for the soul
- Speaker: Almustafa
- Audience: Townspeople or those who lack understanding of friendship
- Immediate Occasion (Friendship)
- Description on how a friendship should be: 50/50 effort
- Mood: Uplifting, Fortunate or even guilty
- Theme: Friendship is a gift and you should use it right, don't use them
- Conveys message through abstract words and formal writing
- Direct subject
- Tone: Enlightening and instructive
- Single-Subject
- Very direct and focused
Beauty
- Poem: Beauty
- Speaker: Almustafa
- Audience: Townspeople or those who lack confidence in their image
- Immediate Occasion
- Description of how people think beauty is the opposite of themselves
- Portrayed through contradicting thoughts and rhetoric questions
- Mood: Confident and bubbly
- Theme: Everything has beauty to it, and even if you can't see it, others can.
- Direct, single and immediate subject
- The speaker/author seems delighted to write about the wonders of beauty
- Influence of writing Beauty: Mary Haskell
- Tone: Dreamy and elated
Writing Style
- In the Prophet, the poems start with, "And a ___ said, 'Speak to us of___'"
- Variety of sentences: Simple, Complex, Periodic, Compound, Compound Complex, Balanced/Paralleled
- Enlightening tone
- Imagery
- Repetition
- Rhetorical Questions
- Religion
- The Prophet: 2nd Person
- Comparisons/Contradictions
- No rhyming
- Personification