# Kahlil Gibran

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Christopher Buck, Kahlil Gibran, bahai-library.com.
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> 
> List of Subjects
> 
> Introduction                   ix         REGINALD MCKNIGHT        147
> Stefanie K. Dunning
> List of Contributors           xi
> JIM WAYNE MILLER         161
> MARY ANTIN                      1            Morris A. Grubbs
> Janet McCann
> TOVA MIRVIS              177
> T. CORAGHESSAN BOYLE           17           Terry Barr
> D. Quentin Miller
> FLOYD SKLOOT             193
> PIETRO DI DONATO               33           Ron Slate
> Tom Cerasulo
> GENE STRATTON-PORTER     211
> TIMOTHY FINDLEY                49           Susan Carol Hauser
> Nancy Bunge
> HOWARD OVERING STURGIS   227
> WALDO FRANK                    67           Benjamin Ivry
> Kathleen Pfeiffer
> LEON URIS                243
> JONATHAN FRANZEN               83           Jack Fischel
> Stephen J. Burn
> PATRICIA NELL WARREN     259
> HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR.         99           Nikolai Endres
> S. Bailey Shurbutt
> PHILLIS WHEATLEY         277
> KAHLIL GIBRAN                 113           Caleb Puckett
> Christopher Buck
> Cumulative Index         293
> ANNE LAMOTT                   131
> Pegge Bochynski                         Authors List             567
> 
> vii
> Contributors
> 
> Terry Barr. Terry Barr holds a Ph.D in English          Nancy Bunge. Nancy Bunge, a professor at
> from the University of Tennessee–Knoxville,             Michigan State University, has held senior Ful-
> and has taught courses in Holocaust Literature          bright lectureships at the University of Vienna
> and Southern Jewish Literature. He has taught           in Austria, at the University of Ghent and the
> Modern Literature and Film Studies at Presbyte-         Free University of Brussels in Belgium and at
> rian College, in Clinton, SC, for the past 23           the University of Siegen in Germany. She is the
> years. His essays have been published in Stud-          interviewer and editor of Finding the Words:
> ies in American Culture, The Journal of Popular         Conversations with Writers Who Teach and Mas-
> Film and TV, the American Literary Review,              ter Class: Lessons from Leading Writers, the
> and in Half-Life: Jew-ishy Tales from Interfaith        editor of Conversations with Clarence Major
> Homes. TOVA MIRVIS                                      and the author of Nathaniel Hawthorne: A Study
> of the Short Fiction. TIMOTHY FINDLEY
> Pegge Bochynski. Pegge Bochynski is a Visit-
> ing Instructor of Advanced Writing at Salem             Stephen J. Burn. Stephen J. Burn is an Associ-
> State College in Salem, Massachusetts. She is           ate Professor at Northern Michigan University.
> the author of reviews and essays, including             He is the author of Jonathan Franzen at the
> those on the work of Nathaniel Hawthorne, John          End of Postmodernism (2008), David Foster
> Updike, Flannery OíConnor, James Thurber,               Wallaceís Infinite Jest: A Readerís Guide
> Thomas Sanchez, Anne Rice, J.K. Rowling,                (2003), and co–editor of Intersections: Essays
> William Sloan Coffin, and Anne Lamott. She is           on Richard Powers (2008). His work has ap-
> also the author of an essay on Joy Harjo for            peared in Modern Fiction Studies, Contempo-
> American Writers Supplement XII. ANNE LA-               rary Literature, the Times Literary Supplement,
> MOTT                                                    and other journals. JONATHAN FRANZEN
> 
> Christopher Buck. Christopher Buck, Ph.D.,              Tom Cerasulo. Tom Cerasulo is an assistant
> J.D., is a Pennsylvania attorney and independent        professor of English at Elms College in Chi-
> scholar. He previously taught at Michigan State         copee, Massachusetts, where he also holds The
> University (2000ñ2004), Quincy University               Shaughness Family Chair for the Study of the
> (1999ñ2000), Millikin University (1997ñ1999),           Humanities. He has published on film adapta-
> and Carleton University (1994ñ1996). His                tions, on ethnicity, and on the cultural history of
> publications include: Religious Myths and Vi-           American authorship. His recent work appears
> sions of America: How Minority Faiths Rede-             in Arizona Quarterly, MELUS, Studies in
> fined Americaís World Role (2009); Alain                American Culture, and Critical Companion to
> Locke: Faith and Philosophy (2005); Paradise            Eugene OíNeill. He is the author of Authors
> and Paradigm: Key Symbols in Persian Chris-             Out Here: Fitzgerald, West, Parker, and Schul-
> tianity and the Bahá’í Faith (1999); Symbol             berg in Hollywood (University of South Carolina
> and Secret: Qur’an Commentary in                        Press, 2010). PIETRO DI DONATO
> Bahá’u’lláh’s Kitáb-i Íqán (1995/2004), and
> other book chapters, encyclopedia articles, and         Stefanie K. Dunning. Stefanie K. Dunning is
> journal articles. KAHLIL GIBRAN                         Associate Professor of English at Miami Univer-
> 
> xi
> KAHLIL GIBRAN
> (1883—1931)
> 
> Christopher Buck
> 
> THE ARAB-AMERICAN author and artist Kahlil Gib-            States. Apart from a two-year study in Paris and
> ran was a best-selling writer whose work has yet           two brief return visits to Lebanon, Gibran spent
> to receive critical acclaim equal to his popular           his entire adult life—the last two-thirds of his
> appeal. There is no question that Gibran’s work            life, in fact—entirely on American soil, dying in
> in Arabic was central to the development of                New York at the age of forty-eight. In The
> twentieth-century Arabic literature—in that Arab           Prophet, the city of Orphalese is often said to
> Romanticism begins with Gibran, the pivotal                represent America (or New York).
> figure in the Mahjar movement of émigré Arab                    Shahid underscores the fact The Prophet was
> writers centered in New York. There is also no             America’s best-selling book of the twentieth
> question that Kahlil Gibran’s masterpiece, The             century, not counting the Bible, and that Gibran
> Prophet (1923)—a small volume of aphorisms                 outsold all other American poets, from Walt
> (wise sayings) offering pithy wisdom of an                 Whitman to Robert Frost. According to Gibran’s
> almost prophetic quality—belongs to world                  New York publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, The
> literature, for it is known and loved the world            Prophet has sold more than ten million copies.
> over. As an American man of letters, however,              The book’s success was due entirely to its own
> Gibran has received scant attention from Ameri-            appeal, as Knopf never promoted it. Strangely,
> can literary critics. Since The Prophet has yet to         Gibran is arguably America’s best-loved prose-
> be widely recognized as an American classic, and           poet, whose market appeal continues despite criti-
> the author yet to be fully accepted as an American         cal indifference. It’s true that Gibran had what
> writer, Gibran’s inclusion in the American Writ-           might be called a double psyche, and inhabited
> ers series requires some justification.                    two thought-worlds at once. As an Arab Ameri-
> Eminent scholars including Irfan Shahid                can, Gibran wrote in two languages: English and
> (professor emeritus at Georgetown University in            Arabic. Arabic was his mother tongue, and
> Washington, D.C.) and Suheil Bushrui (professor            English his second language. As an accomplished
> emeritus and current director of the Kahlil Gib-           man of letters of considerable influence in the
> ran Chair for Values and Peace at the University           Middle East, Gibran inspired a literary renais-
> of Maryland at College Park) have made the case            sance in the Arab world, such that all modern
> for Gibran’s recognition as an American writer             Arabic poetry bears the marks of Gibran’s. Yet
> worthy of note. According to Bushrui, America is           Gibran’s work has had little influence in Ameri-
> entitled to claim Gibran as one of its sons (even          can letters, despite its enormous popular appeal.
> if not a native son) as fully and as authentically         Notwithstanding, Shahid thinks that Gibran has
> as his native Lebanon can lay such claim: “In his          not been fairly treated as an American writer.
> work, he became not only Gibran of Lebanon,                The problem is exacerbated by the fact that,
> but Gibran of America, indeed Gibran the voice             categorically, The Prophet exists in splendid
> of global consciousness” (1996, p. 10). After all,         isolation, severed from its Arabic cultural roots.
> the young Gibran spent only the first twelve years         And so The Prophet will have to be evaluated, or
> of his life in Bsharri (a village near the famous          reevaluated, on its own literary merits and for its
> “Cedars of God”), where he was born in 1883,               singular contribution to the American literary
> before emigrating with his family to the United            heritage.
> 
> KAHLIL GIBRAN
> 
> BIOGRAPHY                                 charges. At the time, Lebanon was a Turkish
> A biography of Kahlil Gibran’s life is complicated           province, part of Greater Syria (Syria, Lebanon,
> by the fact that Gibran himself spun some fanci-             and Palestine) and subjugated to the Ottoman
> ful tales about it. He embroidered, embellished,             Empire, until its fall in 1918. In June 1895, while
> lionized, and mythologized himself. He claimed,              the elder Gibran languished in his Bsharri jail
> for instance, that his father was a wealthy Arab             cell, his wife, Kamila Rahme, left her native
> aristocrat and that his grandfather owned a grand            Lebanon and immigrated with her children to
> mansion guarded by lions, and he did not resist              America, where her brother lived. They arrived
> speculation that he was the reincarnation of the             in New York on June 25, 1895.
> English mystic William Blake. But the real facts                  On December 3, 1895, the family moved into
> betray Gibran’s humble origins, and it is neces-             Boston’s impoverished immigrant South End, in
> sary to demystify Gibran.                                    Chinatown, where their cousins were living. To
> Kahlil Gibran was born on January 6, 1883,              support her four children—Gibran, his younger
> in Bsharri, a picturesque but impoverished Ma-               sisters Marianna and Sultana, and her son by a
> ronite Christian village, perched on a fertile ridge         previous marriage, Peter (Butrus)—Kamila sold
> between Qadisha Gorge and the spectacular grove              cloth and lace in Boston’s then-wealthy Back
> of Lebanon cedars now known as the Cedars of                 Bay. She opened a dry goods store on Beach
> God in northern Lebanon. His original, full name             Street with Kahlil and his half brother, Peter. On
> was Gibran Khalil Gibran—the first name his                  September 30, 1895, Gibran entered Quincy
> own; the second, his father’s; and the last, his             School, where he was placed in a class for im-
> grandfather’s. Raised in the Maronite tradition,             migrant children who needed to learn English.
> Gibran was a sensitive boy. His father, a bully              Gibran’s name was shortened, with two letters
> and a gambler, owned a walnut grove thirty-five              inverted (from Khalil to Kahlil), whether through
> miles from Bsharri. His father’s lordly preten-              a clerical error, or because a teacher wanted the
> sions (marked by his trademark amber cigarette               boy’s first name to suit American pronunciation.
> holder), extravagant habits, aversion to peasant-            In any event, Gibran kept his shortened name,
> type labor, mercurial temper, and addiction to the           Kahlil Gibran, as his English pen name.
> gambling game of domma prompted young Gib-                        Meanwhile, Gibran’s talent for drawing at-
> ran to retreat to the surrounding countryside,               tracted the attention of a growing number of
> which was dominated by the Cedars of God.                    admirers, several of whom became his patrons.
> Contemplative, inventive, and creative, Gibran               Among them was Jessie Fremont Beale, a social
> had no formal schooling in Bsharri, but he                   worker who, in 1896, when apprised of Kahlil’s
> received private instruction from Selim Dahir,               talent for drawing by a settlement house art
> who taught the boy the rudiments of Arabic, his-             teacher, Florence Pierce, wrote to her friend, Fred
> tory, and art. The young Gibran was also mysti-              Holland Day, asking if he would assist the boy.
> cally inclined. Early in life, Gibran interpreted            Day, a wealthy Bostonian aesthete and avant-
> personal experiences as profoundly spiritual in              garde patron of the arts, was also a photographer,
> nature and attached religious significance to them.          and he began to use Gibran, his younger sisters,
> His father, Khalil, clerked in his uncle’s              his half brother, and his mother as models for his
> apothecary shop until he became so indebted                  own symbolist and semierotic “fine art”
> from gambling that he stooped to working as a                photographs. Day viewed the young Gibran’s
> tax collector and enforcer (a job that was                   artistic and literary gifts as evidence of natural
> considered below repute) for Raji Bey, the vil-              genius, and he became the boy’s close mentor
> lage headman and local administrator appointed               and patron.
> by the Ottomans. To put it bluntly, his father was                In 1897, Gibran returned to Lebanon to study
> a thug for the village strongman. In 1891, after             at the Madrasat al-Hikmat (“School of Wisdom”),
> Raji Bey was dismissed following numerous                    founded by the Maronite bishop Joseph Debs in
> complaints, Gibran’s father was jailed on graft              Beirut. In 1899, Gibran had an ill-fated affair
> 
> KAHLIL GIBRAN
> 
> with a twenty-two-year-old Lebanese widow,                    (1918), then The Forerunner (1920), and finally,
> Sultana Tabit (against social taboos), memorial-              The Prophet (1923).
> ized in his Arabic work al-Ajnihខ ah al-                           In 1905, Gibran’s brief piece, al-Músíqá
> Mutakassira, published in 1912 (translated into               (Music) was published by the Arabic immigrant
> English as The Broken Wings in 1957). In autumn               press in New York City, marking the author’s
> 1899, Gibran came back to Boston, but he                      debut into the world of letters. In 1906, Gibran,
> returned again to Lebanon in 1902, as a guide                 who opposed Ottoman Turkish rule and the Ma-
> and interpreter to an American family. But when               ronite Church’s strict social control, published
> his mother became ill, Gibran returned to the                 his next Arabic work in 1906, ‘Ará’is al-Murúj
> United States once more. (She died of tuberculo-              (English trans., Nymphs in the Valley, 1948; the
> sis on June 28, 1903.)                                        work has also been translated as Spirit Brides),
> an anticlerical collection of three short stories
> Day’s mentorship continued to be crucial in
> serving as a caustic critique of establishmentarian
> Gibran’s life; he introduced the young artist to              church and state. The Arabic poem al-Arwáhខ al-
> the writings of the Belgian symbolist Maurice                 Mutamarrida (English trans., Spirits Rebellious,
> Maeterlinck, to the work of nineteenth-century                1948), also incorporating a social critique, fol-
> poets such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whit-                 lowed in 1908. During this same period, Gibran
> man, John Keats, and Percy Bysshe Shelley and                 was working on a book about the philosophy of
> also to the writing of various other British,                 religion and religiosity (also in Arabic); but that
> American, and Continental poets from the turn of              book was never published.
> the century. Day’s patronage made possible                         In 1908, Mary Haskell sponsored Gibran’s
> Gibran’s emergence as a new talent, both as artist            undertaking of a three-year study at the Académie
> and poet, as Gibran entered the prestigious circles           Julian in Paris, a private art school where he
> of Boston’s artistic and intellectual elite. In 1903,         produced the series of paintings titled “The Ages
> Day’s friend the poet Josephine Preston Peabody               of Women” (1909–1910) and a portrait of Au-
> arranged for an exhibition of Gibran’s drawings               guste Rodin (1910). There he was exposed to the
> at Wellesley College. In January 1904, Day held,              work of the English mystic poet William Blake
> in his own studio, an exhibition of Gibran’s art.             (1757–1857), whose thought and art had a
> Another exhibition was held in February 1904 at               profound influence on Gibran. In 1910, Gibran,
> the Cambridge School, where the headmistress                  Ameen Rihani, and Yusuf Huwayyik met in Paris,
> was a progressive schoolteacher named Mary                    where they envisioned and drew up plans for the
> Haskell; Haskell was ten years his senior, but she            cultural renaissance of the Arab world.
> and Gibran developed a close friendship that                       On his return to Boston in October 1910,
> endured throughout his lifetime. (She declined                Gibran earned his living through portrait painting.
> his offer of marriage in 1910, and Gibran re-                 In 1911, he began work on his first English-
> mained a bachelor for the rest of his life, despite           language manuscript, eventually published as The
> the considerable number of women who were                     Madman: His Parables and Poems (1918). He
> drawn to the handsome and gifted artist and                   was frustrated with the shortcomings of the
> poet.) After the exhibitions in early 1904, Day’s             cultural scene in Boston, however, and, in 1912
> Harcourt Buildings studio burned, destroying                  he made New York City his professional home.
> Gibran’s entire portfolio.                                    Gibran produced his finest work in his studio at
> Not only did Mary Haskell remain Gibran’s                 51 West Tenth Street (which he nicknamed “The
> good friend and benefactress, she served as his               Hermitage”).
> editor as well. He continued to rely on her to                     In total, Gibran published seven spiritual
> correct his punctuation and grammar, and oc-                  works in English: The Madman: His Parables
> casionally suggest an alternative word for greater            and Poems (1918), The Forerunner: His Parables
> euphonic effect. From June 1914 to September                  and Poems (1920), The Prophet (1923), Sand
> 1923, he sought her advice on The Madman                      and Foam: A Book of Aphorisms (1926), Jesus,
> 
> KAHLIL GIBRAN
> 
> the Son of Man (1928), The Earth Gods (1931),              his last work to appear during his lifetime. His
> and The Wanderer: His Parables and Sayings                 remains were taken back to Lebanon for burial in
> (1932). The publication in 1918 of The Madman              his home village, arriving in the port of Beirut on
> established Gibran as a writer worthy of note in           August 21, and his body was eventually interred
> America, inaugurating a new literary career in             in the old chapel at the monastery of Mar Sarkis
> English. Among his other Arabic works, Gibran              in his native Bsharri, near which the Gibran
> published Dam’a wa Ibtisáma (1914; English                 Museum was soon established to commemorate
> trans., A Tear and a Smile), al-Mawákib (1919;             his literary and artistic legacy.
> English trans., The Procession), al-’Awásខ if                   On October 19, 1984, the U.S. Congress
> (1920; English trans., The Storm; a collection of          passed legislation authorizing the building of a
> previously published work), Iram, Dhát al-’Imád            memorial to Kahlil Gibran on federal land with
> (1921, one-act play set in a lost Arabian city             private funds. The result was the Khalil Gibran
> mentioned in Qur’an 89:7; English trans., Iram,            Memorial Garden, on Massachusetts Avenue
> City of Lofty Pillars, published in Secrets of the         directly opposite the British Embassy in Washing-
> Heart), and al-Badá’i’ wa’l-Tará’if (1923,                 ton, D.C., which President George H. W. Bush
> English trans., Marvels and Masterpieces).                 dedicated on May 24, 1991, calling the memorial
> Fulfilling the promise he had demonstrated            a tribute to Gibran’s “belief in brotherhood, his
> as a youth, Gibran became an accomplished                  call for compassion, and perhaps above all, his
> visual artist as well. (Along with drawing and             passion for peace.”
> painting, he also executed small wood carvings.)
> In December 1914, Gibran had an exhibition of
> his drawings and paintings at the Montross Gal-                               INFLUENCES
> lery, New York. In 1917, Gibran had exhibits at
> Gibran’s work resonates with that of Blake,
> the Knoedler and Company Gallery, New York,
> Keats, and William Wordsworth and of American
> and the Doll and Richards Gallery, Boston. A
> transcendentalists such as Emerson, Whitman,
> collection, Twenty Drawings, was published by
> and Henry Thoreau, and it arguably shows clear
> Alfred A. Knopf in 1919. In January 1922,
> marks of their influence. For instance, in Gibran’s
> Gibran’s work was showcased at the Women’s
> 1919 Arabic work, translated as The Procession—
> City Club, Boston.
> Gibran’s most respected Arabic poem in verse—
> In April 1920, Gibran and some fellow writ-            the critic Ahmad Majdoubeh has found lexical
> ers from the Arabic diaspora founded a group               and philosophical echoes of Emerson and Tho-
> they named al-Rábita al-Qalamíya (The Pen                  reau, revealing the direct influence of these
> League), or “Arrabitah,” as they referred to it in         exponents of New England transcendentalism. A
> English. Gibran was elected president and the              personal letter dated November 10, 1925, from
> Lebanese author, Mikhail Naimy, secretary. This            Gibran to the archbishop and metropolitan Anto-
> was the first Romantic school in the Arab world.           nious Bashir (who translated The Prophet into
> Ardent nationalists, Gibran and other members of           Arabic) offers insights into possible further influ-
> the Arrabitah sought reform and Arab liberation            ences on Gibran’s work. In this letter (translated
> from colonialism through the power of the pen.             from the Arabic by George N. El-Hage in 2005),
> The society published a literary and political             Gibran tellingly commends to the archbishop, for
> journal, al-Sá’ihខ (The Traveler), edited by ‘Abd          translation to Arabic, “four valuable books which
> al-Masíh Haddád, which was widely read across              I believe are among the best that Westerners have
> the Arab world. They met regularly until Gibran’s          written during our present time” (p. 12): The
> death eleven years later.                                  Treasure of the Humble (1896) by the Belgian
> On April 10, 1931, Gibran died of cirrhosis            symbolist Maurice Maeterlinck (rendered from
> of the liver with incipient tuberculosis at St.            the French original); Tertium Organum (1912) by
> Vincent’s Hospital in New York. Two weeks                  the Russian philosopher P. D. Ouspensky; Folk-
> before his death, he published The Earth Gods,             Lore in the Old Testament (1918) by the Scottish
> 
> KAHLIL GIBRAN
> 
> anthropologist James George Frazer; and The                   that same day, in a letter to Mary Haskell, Gibran
> Dance of Life (1923) by the British sexologist                wrote that he had, in the presence of ‘Abdu’l-
> Havelock Ellis.                                               Bahá, “seen the Unseen, and been filled” (Bushrui
> Other scholars theorize about the way in                 and Jenkins, p. 126). Juliet Thompson later
> recalled Gibran telling her that his audiences with
> which Gibran re-visions Christianity in the light
> ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had profoundly influenced his writ-
> of Sufi (Islamic) mysticism. In the Madrasat al-
> ing of Jesus, the Son of Man, which appeared in
> Hikmat, beyond his required course of studies,
> 1928.
> Gibran immersed himself in classical and contem-
> porary Arabic literature, including Paris al-                      Ultimately, however, Gibran, while shaped
> Shidyak, Francis al-Marrásh, Adib Isháq, and the              by his influences, crafted his own art and writing
> great Sufi masters Rumi, ‘Umar ibn al-Faríd, al-              in his own way. The sum total of these “influ-
> Ghazálí, Ibn Rushd (Averroes), and Ibn Síná                   ences” are perhaps best characterized as “conflu-
> (Avicenna). This immersion was to have a lasting              ences”—that is, the convergence of orientations
> influence on Gibran: the American architect                   and ideas that were spun into prosaic gold by
> Claude Bragdon recalls how, at the end of his                 Gibran’s synthetic power and gilded by his own
> life, Gibran would freely translate Sufi poets to a           sapiential genius.
> circle of admirers and would recount folktales of                  From the sophomoric to the sublime, Gibran’s
> his native Lebanon. Thus Gibran’s early works                 prose-poems may be characterized as a form of
> effectively re-forge Sufi thought, in which, as               secular wisdom literature, reaching audiences
> expressed by Suheil Bushrui and Joe Jenkins in                with a spiritual—but not necessarily religious—
> their biography of Kahlil Gibran, Gibran’s                    interest. That having been said, Gibran’s sage
> “aphorisms, parables, and allegories closely                  advice, through the mouthpieces of his various
> resemble Sufi wisdom—the themes of paradox                    literary personae, is more inspirational than
> and illusion turning on the unripeness of a sleep-            prescriptive in nature, and it rarely ventures into
> ing humanity attached to the ephemeral” (p. 15).              the realm of social teachings that might guide a
> Thus in Gibran’s work (although he is by no                   society as a whole.
> means a “Sufi poet”), man is portrayed as on the                   Ideologically, Gibran urged escape from the
> arc of ascent, traversing spiritual degrees in draw-          trappings of materialism (although sales of The
> ing closer to God, in which one becomes increas-              Prophet endowed him with a respectable income).
> ingly godlike in the process.                                 He encouraged transcending sectarian religious
> Friedrich Nietzsche, Carl Jung, and Rabindra-            conflict, he promoted reform in the Arab world,
> nath Tagore (whom Gibran met in December                      and he championed ideal East-West relations, in
> 1916) are cited as other influences, although                 which he believed he might play the role of
> Bushrui and Jenkins emphasize that Gibran was                 cultural intermediary. While he promoted spiritu-
> drawn to Nietzsche’s form rather than his formu-              ality and virtue, he was not a paragon of it.
> lations and identified with his passion more than             Although mystically inclined, Gibran was not a
> his philosophy. There is evidence of Bahá’í influ-            mystic. But his art endowed life and nature with
> ence as well: the New York artist Juliet Thomp-               the mystique of divine mystery.
> son, one of Gibran’s artistic circle of close friends              Except for mentioning their publication in
> and an adherent of the Bahá’í Faith, had lent him             the course of his career, Gibran’s Arabic works, a
> several works of its founder, Bahá’u’lláh, in the             number of which have been translated into
> original Arabic. These writings impressed Gibran              English, will not be treated in the following
> deeply, for he later declared that Bahá’u’lláh’s              discussion, as Gibran’s works in English are what
> Arabic works were the most “stupendous litera-                distinguish him as an American writer of note.
> ture that ever was written” (Bushrui and Jenkins,             That having been said, Gibran’s Arabic works (in
> p. 125). On Friday, April 19, 1912, Gibran drew,              translation), will be consulted as an aid by which
> in his studio, a portrait of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá (1844–              to interpret some of Gibran’s salient themes in
> 1921), the son and successor to Bahá’u’lláh. On               his English work.
> 
> KAHLIL GIBRAN
> 
> THE MADMAN                                  nor serial selves. They are simply selves in dif-
> ferent stages of spiritual development.
> Out of the thirty-four parables that comprise of
> The Madman: His Parables and Poems (1918),                         In The Madman, Gibran’s contrast of the
> eleven original manuscripts are preserved in Prin-            soporific self and the sapiential self is inchoate
> ceton Library’s Department of Rare Books and                  and undeveloped. Previously, in his Arabic work,
> Special Collections as part of the William H.                 A Tear and a Smile (1914), Gibran had spoken of
> Shehadi Collection of Kahlil Gibran. The order                the “inner self” as a “spirit growing” within the
> in which the parables appear in the manuscripts               thew and sinew of the “flesh” or the “covering of
> differs somewhat from their published sequence.               matter” (p. 789)—yet the doctrine of the greater
> Annotations in Arabic can be found throughout.                self is scarcely developed beyond the spirit/matter
> The Madman is said to have been based on                      dichotomy. Yet the theme of the benighted self
> Lebanese folklore.                                            and the awakened self may be traced throughout
> Gibran’s mature works, where the doctrine
> The book’s eponymous persona, the “mad-
> matures as well.
> man,” has had seven prior lives, and he begins to
> recount experiences and expound parables. In the
> latter part of the book, Gibran experiments with
> THE FORERUNNER
> personification of a blade of grass, a leaf, the
> eye, sorrow and joy, and so forth. The Madman’s               Most of Gibran’s work The Forerunner: His
> desultory nature and lack of coherence is evi-                Parables and Poems (1920) is composed of tales,
> dence of Gibran’s developing yet unripened tal-               interspersed with a few poems. The tales are very
> ent insofar as his English work was concerned.                much like Sufi tales. Seven of the twenty-four
> While The Madman has been described as a                      morality tales The Forerunner are archived in the
> thought-provoking collection of life-affirming                William H. Shehadi Collection at Princeton. The
> parables and poems, the book can scarcely be                  tale “God’s Fool” is set in the city of Sharia,
> described as prescriptive in nature. It inspires              which is an obvious reference to the Islamic code
> self-reflection, but not a clear sense of self-direc-         of law (although the reference would not have
> tion—except insofar as Gibran’s most basic mes-               been obvious to Gibran’s readers). The tale
> sage is concerned, as exemplified by the last                 “Dynasties” takes place in the city of Ishana,
> sentence of the chapter “The Greater Sea”: “Then              which betrays possible Hindu influence, as Is-
> we left that sea to seek the Greater Sea”                     hana is one of the five faces of the god Shiva. To
> (Collected Works, p. 38; all citations are from               what extent Gibran’s place-names are symbolic is
> this 2007 volume). If The Madman has a mes-                   hard to say.
> sage, that message is that of discovering the true                The underlying theme of The Forerunner is
> self—the greater sea is the greater self.                     the need to spiritually awaken. Here, in contrast
> In “The Sleep-Walkers,” the “freer self” is              to The Madman, Gibran’s doctrine of the awak-
> mentioned. This implies another self, presumably              ened self is further developed. It commands the
> captive of passions and other limitations. In “The            attention of the reader in the opening line: “You
> Seven Selves,” the madman teaches that there is               are your own forerunner, and the towers you have
> a rebellious self, a joyous self, the love-ridden             builded are but the foundation of your giant-self”
> self, the tempest-like self, the thinking self, the           (p. 53). Thus the prologue opens by saying that
> working self, and the do-nothing self. The seven              each person is his or her own forerunner, and
> stages of the soul are a well-known Sufi para-                that each person has a “giant-self” within, which
> digm, although Gibran has taken liberties with it             is the “greater self” (one of the tales is “The
> here. In “Night and the Madman,” the Night tells              Greater Self”) and “freer self” as well. The
> the Madman of his “little-self,” of his “monster-             greater self may be thought of as a “deeper
> self,” and that his soul is wrapped in the veil of            heart.” In “Out of My Deeper Heart,” Gibran
> seven folds (p. 33). These are neither separate               speaks of “man’s larger self” (p. 73). The Mad-
> 
> KAHLIL GIBRAN
> 
> man, in his parable titled “Crucified,” had                  to death in the marketplace after being freed.
> exclaimed: “For we must be crucified by larger               Gibran had partly written the second work, which
> and yet larger men, between greater earths and               was completed by Barbara Young (the pseudonym
> greater heavens” (p. 39). That which is crucified            of Henrietta Breckenridge Boughton, who
> will resurrect with greater power, and so the                claimed she was Gibran’s secretary and compan-
> lesser self, when crucified, will rise as a larger           ion for the last seven years of his life) and
> self in a progressing expanding consciousness.               published posthumously as The Garden of the
> The spiritual self is opposed by the materi-            Prophet in 1933. (To what extent that book actu-
> ally attached self—the self that must be cruci-              ally is Gibran’s authentic work is controversial.)
> fied—which is described in various ways. In the              Nineteen of the twenty-six discourses, or poetic
> poem “Love,” Gibran speaks of the “weaker self”              essays, as well as the prologue and epilogue (or
> (p. 57), but later in “Beyond My Solitude,” the              farewell) of The Prophet are archived in Prince-
> two selves are mentioned together: “Beyond this              ton Library’s Shehadi Collection.
> burdened self lives my freer self” (p. 86). The                   The plot of The Prophet is skeletal. The
> Forerunner’s final piece, “The Last Watch,” is a             Prophet’s name is Almustafa—that is, “al-
> sermon by the Forerunner himself, who speaks to              Mustafa” (Arabic for “the Chosen” and one of
> slumberers in their sleep, right before dawn. He             the names of Muhammad)—in its more familiar
> speaks like the prophets of old. He has loved one            transliteration. Almustafa was a stranger who tar-
> and all, “overmuch,” including “the giant and the            ried twelve, lonely years the city of Orphalese,
> pigmy” (p. 87; symbols for the spiritually                   waiting to return to the island where he was born.
> awakened and spiritually undeveloped selves).                From a mountaintop, he saw a ship with purple
> The message is that spiritual awakening is                   sails slip through the mist, and he hastened to the
> needed. If each one is a Forerunner, as the open-            city to meet it. There he was met by a throng of
> ing line explicitly says, then that Forerunner “sees         people in a great square before the temple. They
> with the light of God,” as is said in “The Last              came to bid him farewell.
> Watch,” which continues, “He speaks like the                     A seeress named Almitra entreats the Prophet
> prophets of old. He unveils our souls and unlocks            to impart to them his wisdom before he embarks
> our hearts” (p. 90). The Forerunner within each              on his way back home. Speak, Almitra beseeches
> person is prophetic. Ultimately, the Forerunner              Almustafa, of love. Speak, asks another witness,
> becomes a Prophet, whose mission is to awaken                of marriage. And so the Prophet speaks on topics
> and illumine the soul within.                                that matter most in human life: “On Love,” “On
> Marriage,” “On Children,” “On Giving,” “On
> Eating and Drinking,” “On Work,” “On Joy and
> THE PROPHET                                Sorrow,” “On Houses,” “On Clothes,” “On Buy-
> The Forerunner, according to Gibran’s contempo-              ing and Selling,” “On Crime and Punishment,”
> rary Mikhail Naimy, was a title chosen deliber-              “On Laws,” “On Freedom,” “On Reason and Pas-
> ately by Gibran as a precursor of The Prophet.               sion,” “On Pain,” “On Self-Knowledge,” “On
> Gibran conceived The Prophet, published in                   Teaching,” “On Friendship,” “On Talking,” “On
> 1923, as the first of a trilogy, to be followed by           Time,” “On Good and Evil,” “On Prayer,” “On
> “The Garden of the Prophet” (on humanity’s                   Pleasure,” “On Beauty,” “On Religion,” and “On
> relationship to Nature) and “The Death of the                Death.” Of these discourses, the most popular in
> Prophet” (on humanity’s relationship to God).                American popular culture may well be “On Mar-
> The first book is set on the eve of the Prophet’s            riage,” which is used in a great many American
> departure from Orphalese to his native island; the           wedding ceremonies.
> second is set on the island itself, in the garden of             These topics reflect universal human
> the Prophet’s mother; and the planned third                  concerns. Almustafa’s discourses may best be
> volume would have the Prophet return to Or-                  characterized as spiritual meditations, yet they do
> phalese, only to be imprisoned and then stoned               not rise, much less aspire, to the threshold of
> 
> KAHLIL GIBRAN
> 
> prophetic or revelatory utterances. They are                 Haskell; Almustafa’s native island as Lebanon;
> words of wisdom; they are sublime, but not                   and the twelve years in Orphalese as the twelve
> divine. The Prophet, moreover, has been de-                  years Gibran spent in New York prior to the
> scribed as neither a purely philosophical work               publication of The Prophet.
> nor a purely literary work, and therefore it oc-                  Unenchanted critics have criticized The
> cupies an ambiguous position in American                     Prophet as platitudinous and petty. Others find
> literature. Although English in form, it is Arabic           Gibran’s masterpiece profound and ennobling.
> in thought-form.                                             Writing in the London Review of Books, Robert
> Published in September 1923 by the presti-              Irwin caricatured Gibran’s poetic craft by declar-
> gious New York publishing firm of Alfred A.                  ing that “as latter-day Prophet, Gibran favoured
> Knopf, The Prophet is Gibran’s masterpiece.                  a mock-Biblical delivery, larded with archaisms,
> Composed, for the most part, in April and May                and inversions of word-order for rhetorical ef-
> of 1918, its original title, as a manuscript, was            fect.” Bushrui and Jenkins, by contrast, privilege
> “The Counsels.” Of its initial print run of 2,000,           The Prophet as “the most highly regarded poem
> The Prophet sold only 1,159 copies (although                 of the twentieth century” and as “the most widely
> other sources claim that the print run was 1,300             read book of the century” (p. 2). The broad and
> and that these sold out within a month or two).              long-lasting appeal of The Prophet in American
> To Knopf’s surprise, demand for The Prophet                  popular culture has never been satisfactorily
> doubled the following year and again the year                explained, but presumably it has something to do
> after. The book sold 12,000 copies in 1935, and              with the human hunger for deeper meaning in
> late in World War II an edition for distribution to          life, which established religions have tradition-
> soldiers was published by the nonprofit Council              ally provided. Given the widespread decline in
> on Books in Wartime. Sales numbered 111,000 in               church attendance and the waning influence of
> 1961, and 240,000 in 1964, according to a 1965               religion generally, does the appeal of The Prophet
> article in Time magazine tracing the cultlike                render it a surrogate gospel?
> phenomenon that The Prophet had become. It
> “Gospel” is, in fact, too narrow a word, in
> went on to become the best-selling book of the
> that The Prophet is not an exclusively Christian
> twentieth century, apart from the Bible, and has
> text; rather it is a fusion of Christian and Islamic
> been translated into over forty languages.
> (Sufi) mysticism. In religious terms, The Prophet
> Of the experience of writing this book—                  could be considered not a social gospel but,
> which is of modest length (less than twenty                  rather, a personal gospel—a gospel with a mes-
> thousand words) yet of immodest ethos—Gibran                 sage of salvation from the ignorance of one’s
> wrote to Archbishop Antonious Bashir: “You                   own true self, not of salvation from sin in the
> know that this small book is a part and parcel of            traditional Christian sense. Gibran himself
> my being, and I hardly wrote a chapter of it                 epitomized the message of The Prophet: “The
> without experiencing a transformation in the                 whole Prophet is saying one thing: ‘You are far
> depth of my soul” (El-Hage, trans., p. 172).                 far greater than you know—and All is well’”
> Admirers of the The Prophet respond to its                   (Bushrui and Jenkins, p. 238). In the chapter
> luminous wisdom and its approach to the                      “Crime and Punishment,” Almustafa speaks of
> numinous.                                                    the “god-self” (that is, the higher nature) and
> Yet there is a hidden dimension to The                   what he calls the “pigmy-self” (that is, the lower
> Prophet as well. Mikhail Naimy, Gibran’s friend              nature): “Like the ocean is your god-self. ѧ Even
> and, later, his critical biographer, saw The Prophet         like the sun is your god-self; ѧ But your god-self
> as an intensely personal production. One is                  dwells not alone in your being. ѧ But a shapeless
> struck, certainly, by the visual resemblance                 pigmy that walks asleep in the mist searching for
> between the portrait of Almustafa and that of                its own awakening” (p. 122) The human person
> Gibran himself. One can see Almustafa as Gib-                is both benighted and enlightened, in that each
> ran; Orphalese as New York; Almitra as Mary                  individual is “but one man standing in twilight
> 
> KAHLIL GIBRAN
> 
> between the night of his pigmy-self and the day               While a reader may understand that passion is
> of his god-self” (p. 124). This is Gibran at his              emotion and emotion has motive power, and that
> most pellucid moment: The giant within is the                 reason is pensive and therefore still, whether
> god-self, while the dwarf within is the pygmy                 reason is best described as “rest” is controversial.
> self, which stand in polar relation to each other             Yet ultimately such definitions are not the point.
> as day and night. The relation of the pygmy self              The Prophet is exquisitely inspirational—it is not
> to the giant self is developmental, progressive,              intended to be ethically explicit or morally
> evolving, like that of the acorn to the oak. But is           prescriptive, nor is it a social panacea.
> the god-self the spiritually awakened lesser self
> grown to its full potential, or is the greater self a
> cosmic principle, a world supersoul? There is no                              SAND AND FOAM
> consensus among scholars on this issue, but the
> latter interpretation seems persuasive, because it            Gibran is the consummate aphorist, and his 1926
> carries the inherent pantheism of The Prophet to              volume Sand and Foam is primarily a collection
> the extreme.                                                  of aphorisms, pithy bits of wisdom, strung like
> In the volume’s concluding discourse, “The                pearls across the skin of the slender volume’s
> Farewell,” Almustafa says: “It is in the vast man             pages. Some of the aphorisms in this work were
> that you are vast, And in beholding him that I                first composed by other writers in Arabic, then
> beheld you and loved you” (p. 154). The concept               translated by Gibran into English. For instance,
> of the “vast man” is the key to unlocking the                 Gibran writes, “Love is the veil between lover
> message of The Prophet. By “man” is meant                     and lover” (p. 185). This alludes to a couplet
> consciousness. The greater the spiritual aware-               composed by the Bahá’í founder and prophet,
> ness, the vaster the man. Man is asleep, benighted            Bahá’u’lláh’s. As it is written in an English
> in oblivion to a higher reality (including his own            translation of his mystical work The Seven Val-
> higher being), until awakened by the dawn of                  leys and the Four Valleys: “Love is a veil betwixt
> spiritual awareness. The seed of that awareness is            the lover and the loved one; More than this I am
> the realization that a person is far more than the            not permitted to tell” (Marzieh Gail, 1991).
> body, as the physical frame cannot contain the                Despite its negative reception by critics, Sand
> boundless spirit. Almustafa explains, “You are                and Foam won popular acclaim.
> not enclosed within your bodies, nor confined to                   Gibran sustains his anthropology of the lower
> houses or fields. That which is you dwells above              and higher selves in this book, with phrasing
> the mountain and roves with the wind” (p. 159).               such as “You are but a fragment of your giant
> Elsewhere in The Prophet, the message seems to                self” (p. 225) and “rising toward your greater
> be that love is the power of spiritual growth. It             self” (p. 173). Rising toward the greater self is a
> manifests most intensively in the passionate love             process of expanding one’s awareness and seeing
> between man and woman, yet that is merely a                   the greater picture in a vaster panorama un-
> beginning for the wider embrace of love. Love                 bounded by limitations of narrow identities: “If
> results in unity, and that sharing or merging of              you would rise but a cubit above race and country
> consciousness is expansive and redemptive.                    and self you would indeed become godlike” (p.
> In “The Farewell,” the Prophet admits that               225). Elsewhere in Sand and Foam, the writer
> his teachings may be “vague”: “If these be vague              speaks of the “other self” as the greater self:
> words, then seek not to clear them” (p. 159).                 “Your other self is always sorry for you. But your
> This vagueness has not escaped the notice of crit-            other self grows on sorrow; so all is well” (p.
> ics who feel that The Prophet is overrated. As an             184). (This evokes Gibran’s précis of the mes-
> example, in the discourse “On Reason and Pas-                 sage of The Prophet discussed above—“You are
> sion,” Almustafa says that one should rest in                 far far greater than you know—and All is well”—
> reason and move in passion, just as “God rests in             and the idea as before, that God is latent within
> reason” and “God moves in passion” (p. 130).                  each person as the greater self.)
> 
> KAHLIL GIBRAN
> 
> The book concludes with what may be                       iaphas and Annas are all archetypally alive in the
> Gibran’s most prescriptive general counsel in                 recurring cosmic drama.
> English: “Every thought I have imprisoned in                       Ernest Renan’s Life of Jesus (English trans.,
> expression I must free by my deeds” (p. 228).                 1863) was a major influence on Gibran’s concep-
> Here, action follows cognition, if moved by                   tion of Jesus. His biographers Bushrui and Jen-
> volition. Mere intentionality is inert, and action            kins claim Baha’i influence as well: “The tem-
> without knowledge and wisdom is a rudderless                  plate for his unique portrayal of Jesus was
> ship. In Sand and Foam, the reader stands on the
> inspired by his meetings in 1912 with ‘Abdu’l-
> shore of the ocean of grandeur, gazes on the sea
> Bahá, the Bahá’í leader, whom he drew in New
> of wisdom, is awakened and enlightened by the
> York, a man whose presence moved Gibran to
> dawn of knowledge, is inspired by the breezes of
> exclaim: ‘For the first time I saw form noble
> love, is uplifted like a bird, and soars in the
> enough to be a receptacle for the Holy Spirit’”
> atmosphere of spiritual oversight in an invisible
> (p. 252). This novel hypothesis, however, remains
> world that endows the visible world with mean-
> undeveloped. While Gibran was clearly impressed
> ing and purpose—yet the reader must inevitably
> by Bahá’u’lláh’s writings in Arabic, and by
> return to the rigors of daily life and find a way to
> ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in person, he was relatively
> translate insight into action.
> unfamiliar with the full scope of Baha’i teach-
> ings and thus cannot be said to have subscribed
> to them generally. The result was a gospel narra-
> JESUS, THE SON OF MAN                             tive that is not seamless but rather is a patchwork
> For twenty years, Gibran had wanted to write a                of fictional reminiscences by those who knew or
> life of Jesus. After Alfred Knopf gave him a two-             had met the Nazarene, creating an impressionistic
> thousand-dollar advance, Gibran abandoned The                 medley of memories that would entertain, even
> Garden of the Prophet in order to work on Jesus,              illumine, but not necessarily enlighten. ‘Abdu’l-
> the Son of Man, which he began in November                    Bahá, rather than being an actual template for
> 1926. The book, published in 1928, was hand-                  Jesus, the Son of Man, could arguably have
> somely produced with some of Gibran’s illustra-               served as an immediate inspirational presence in
> tions in color. Reviews were favorable, and the               the mind of Gibran, while he was composing this
> book remains the most popular of his works after              secular yet sacred portrait of Jesus.
> The Prophet.                                                      Is Gibran’s Jesus Christian? Clearly, the
> The full title of this work is Jesus, the Son of         figure portrayed in this volume is both orthodox
> Man: His Words and His Deeds as Told and                      and extra-orthodox (not necessarily heterodox).
> Recorded by Those Who Knew Him. This poly-                    Curiously, in “John the Son of Zebedee: On the
> choral and imaginal life of Jesus is Gibran’s                 Various Appellations of Jesus,” Zoroaster, the
> lengthiest work in English. It is a creative and              prophet of the Persians, is identified as a previ-
> reverential life of Jesus as told by seventy-eight            ous incarnation of Jesus, as is Prometheus and
> of his contemporaries, both real and fictional,               Mithra. Not only does Gibran add apocryphal ac-
> enemies as well as friends, and strangers from a              counts to the life of Jesus, he enhances a number
> distance—such as the Persian philosopher who                  of the sayings of Jesus by taking a familiar teach-
> was a follower of the Persian prophet Zoroaster.              ing and expanding on it. For instance, in “Simon
> As such, Jesus, the Son of Man is a series of                 Who Was Called Peter: When He and His Brother
> sketches from which a patchwork portrait of                   Were Called,” Jesus says to Andrew, brother of
> Jesus emerges. At the very end, “A Man from                   Peter, on the shores of Galilee: “Follow me to
> Lebanon Nineteen Centuries Afterward” speaks,                 the shores of a greater sea. I shall make you fish-
> saying that seven times he was born and seven                 ers of men. And your net shall never be empty”
> times he had died, that Jesus’ mother is seen in              (p. 253); a reader might recall that “the greater
> the sheen of the face of all mothers; that Mary               sea” is a favorite Gibranian symbol for the Sufi
> Magdalene, Judas, John, Simon Peter, and Ca-                  notion of the greater self, or the “perfect man.”
> 
> KAHLIL GIBRAN
> 
> The most extensive of Gibran’s edifying edits           does not see. / And that is the secret of our be-
> of the sayings of Jesus is in the chapter, “Mat-            ing” (p. 431). In other words, the greater self, the
> thew: The Sermon on the Mount,” in which Gib-               spiritual giant, Christ-spirit is within. The begin-
> ran embellishes Jesus’ beatitudes, proverbs, and            ning of salvation is to awaken the sleeping giant.
> other teachings. This, in turn, is followed by                  At the height of their debate, the Third God
> Gibran’s version of the Lord’s Prayer. Sometimes            proclaims: “Love is our lord and master” (p. 443).
> the alteration or embellishment may be ac-                  Love is God on Earth. Beyond that, the debate is
> complished by a single word, such as in Gibran’s            convoluted and unsophisticated, with no clear
> version of Jesus’ “cry of dereliction,” as scholars         progression in reasoning. (There is no rhyme.)
> call it. In “Barabbas: The Last Words of Jesus,”            The Earth Gods is perhaps the least deserving of
> Jesus, who is still alive on the cross, exclaims,           Gibran’s English works. Its publication was
> “Father, why hast Thou forsaken us?”—where                  anticlimactic. Fortunately, it was followed by the
> the word “us” is substituted for “me” (p. 390).             appearance of The Wanderer, which is more true
> Some of Gibran’s sayings of Jesus are utterly               to form and a more befitting legacy.
> noncanonical, as in this saying from “James the
> Brother of the Lord: The Last Supper”: “Heaven
> and earth, and hell too, are of man” (p. 397).                              THE WANDERER
> Gibran here has disenchanted the metaphysical
> world of the principality of Satan and shifted at-          Gibran finalized the manuscript of The Wanderer:
> tention back to the true principal of evil—man.             His Parables and His Sayings during the last
> The biographical narrative is not sequential            three weeks of his life. The original manuscript,
> and is sometimes glaringly out of sequence. For             however, is not extant; after she edited the
> instance, “The Last Supper” appears shortly after           manuscript, and once the book appeared in print
> the Crucifixion account, mentioned above. The               in 1932, Barbara Young destroyed it. The Wan-
> anecdotal accounts are interwoven with the oc-              derer is primarily a book of fables, tales told by
> casional poem, typically a paean to Jesus. Jesus,           the itinerant traveler whom a man chances to
> the Son of Man, as a whole, is an artistically              meet and invite to his home. The guest regales
> original and eloquent tribute to the “Prophet of            his host and family with edifying stories with
> Nazareth.”                                                  various morals. Some of these stories serve as
> social commentaries as well. Among the fifty-
> two parables and poems, for instance, in “The
> Lightning Flash,” a Christian bishop is asked by
> THE EARTH GODS
> a non-Christian whether there is salvation for her
> As a complete work, The Earth Gods, published               from hellfire. The bishop replies that only those
> in 1931, brings Gibran’s literary work to a                 baptized in water and the spirit will be saved.
> conclusion, as it appeared shortly prior to his             Then a thunderbolt strikes the cathedral, igniting
> death in same year. Illustrated with several                a fire. The woman is saved by the men of the
> exquisitely executed drawings by Gibran himself,            city, but the bishop is consumed by the fire. This
> twenty-eight manuscript pages of the book                   fabulous fable turns on the irony of the priest
> (which correspond to pages 1 to 27, or two-thirds           telling the woman that she is destined for hell-
> of the published book) are archived in Princeton            fire, when he himself is the one ultimately
> Library’s Shehadi Collection.                               engulfed by fire; of she being saved and he, not.
> The Earth Gods is a free-verse triologue                The salvation of dogma is the antithesis of real
> among three earth-born Titans, in what may be               salvation.
> considered a meditation on love. At one point,                   In “The Prophet and the Child,” the prophet
> the Second God discloses the open “secret” that             “Sharia” appears, with Gibran again drawing on
> is at the heart of Gibran’s consistent message:             the term for the Islamic code of law. In “The
> “Yea, in your own soul your Redeemer lies                   King,” the author speaks of the “kingdom of
> asleep, / And in sleep sees what your waking eye            Sខ adik” (p. 466)—an Islamic term for “righteous”
> 
> KAHLIL GIBRAN
> 
> and name of Ja’far al-Sádiq (d.765 C.E.), univer-           more perfectly illustrated than in “Khalil the
> sally revered as a mystic in both Sunní and Shí’a           Heretic”—one of the four short stories of Spirits
> Islam, and regarded as the “Sixth Imám” by all              Rebellious (although only three of the stories
> Shí’a Muslims. In “The Three Gifts,” Gibran                 from the Arabic appear in Anthony Ferris’ transla-
> writes of his birthplace, “Becharre” (p. 469), and          tion (the other two being “Madame Rose Hanie”
> in “The Quest,” two ancient philosophers meet               and “The Cry of the Graves,” excluding “The
> on a mountain slope of Lebanon much like the                Bridal Bed”). Speaking transparently as the
> one near Gibran’s childhood home. There is much             character Khalil in this story, Gibran fictionalizes
> personification throughout the stories, such as in          himself as a young peasant man who challenges
> “Garments” (where Beauty and Ugliness                       the avaricious prince, Sheik Abbas, and the cor-
> converse), or “The Eagle and the Skylark,” in               rupt Maronite church. In part 3, Khalil introduces
> which a talking turtle enters into the conversation         himself by name. He tells the story of how he
> between the two birds. There are talking oysters,
> had dwelled for a time in a monastery, where the
> frogs, dogs, trees, sparrows, grass, and even a
> monks addressed him as “Brother Mobarak”—
> speaking shadow. Like the title of the book’s final
> yet they never treated Khalil as a “brother.” They
> fable, “The Other Wanderer,” the book may be
> dined on sumptuous foods and drank the finest
> thought of as a desultory disquisition on the
> wine, while Khalil subsisted on dry vegetables
> mysteries of life and death, in which the reader is
> and water, and they slumbered in soft beds while
> left to divine the wisdom of each brief tale.
> the young man slept on a stone slab in a dank
> and dismal room by the shed.
> 
> INTERPRETING GIBRAN’S ENGLISH WORKS BY
> One day, Khalil recounts, he stood bravely
> HIS ARABIC WORKS                                before the monks who gathered in the garden and
> criticized them for corrupting the teachings of
> Gibran’s early Arabic works may offer a key to              Christ by segregating themselves from the people
> better understanding Gibran’s salient themes in             and enjoying the fruits of others’ labor in an
> English. Gibran’s eight Arabic books are: Music             unholy parasitism. Jesus had sent these corrupt
> (al-Músíqá, 1905), Nymphs of the Valley (‘Ará’is            monks as lambs among wolves, Khalil says—
> al-Murúj, 1906), Spirits Rebellious (al-Arwáhខ al-          that although they feign virtue, their hearts are
> Mutamarrida, 1908), The Broken Wings (al-                   full of lust; they pretend to abhor earthly things,
> ’Ajnihខ a al-Mutakassirah, 1912), A Tear and a              but their hearts are swollen with greed. For his
> Smile (Dam’a wa Ibtisáma, 1914), The Proces-                words, Khalil was branded a heretic, and he was
> sion (al-Mawákib, 1919), and two collections of             scourged and cast into a dark cell for forty days
> previously published work, The Storm (al-                   and nights. In part 5, Kahlil the Heretic describes
> ’Awásif, 1920), Marvels and Masterpieces (al-               the way that, in Lebanon, the noble and the priest
> Badá’i’ wa’l-Tará’if, 1923), and Heads of Grain             collude to exploit the farmer who has worked the
> (al-Sanábil, 1929), (Music scarcely qualifies as a          land and reaped the harvest to protect himself
> book, however, since it is only eleven pages                from the sword of the ruler and the curse of the
> long.) To express his ideas in Arabic, Gibran first         priest. We learn that Sheik Abbas conspired with
> used the short narrative, but over time, he                 Father Elias to punish Khalil for having sought
> employed the literary devices of parable, apho-             shelter at the house of Rachel, the widow of Sa-
> rism, allegory, and epigram—all of which became             maan Ramy. In part 6, Khalil is arrested and
> the distinctive stylistic hallmarks of his English          brought to the Sheik’s home. In part 7, before a
> works.                                                      throng of onlookers, Khalil answers his accusers,
> In a 1908 letter to his cousin Nakhli, Gibran,          Sheik Abbas and Father Elias, and tells them that
> wrote: “I know that the principles upon which I             the souls of the peasants are in the grip of the
> base my writings, are echoes of the spirit of the           priests, and their bodies are in the jaws of the
> great majority of the people of the world” (quoted          rulers. Winning over the villagers by force of
> in Bushrui and Jenkins, p. 87). Nowhere is this             argument and eloquence, Khalil then beseeches
> 
> KAHLIL GIBRAN
> 
> Liberty, and, in his prayer, he calls “Liberty” (p.          ary pieces typically represent a single arresting
> 687) the “Daughter of Athens,” the “Sister of                image. Gibran is also incapable of ironic detach-
> Rome,” the “companion of Moses,” the “beloved                ment, or even rational analysis. Gibran’s paint-
> of Muhammad,” and the “Bride of Jesus” (p.                   ings and stories are dreamlike and ethereal.
> 688).                                                        Whether a painting, a prose poem, or an il-
> The story has a happy ending. We learn that             lustrated story, Gibran’s art touches the heart at a
> a half a century later, the Lebanese people had              prerational level. As in his painting, Gibran in his
> awakened. In the future, fifty years later, a                writing uses a vivid but essentially static image,
> traveler, on his way to the Holy Cedars of                   but he does not explicate this link of emotion
> Lebanon, is struck by contented villagers in                 and experience; his work is impressionistic.
> homes surrounded by fertile fields and blooming                   While one may appreciate the extraordinary
> orchards. Sheik Abbas’ mansion has since fallen              force of Gibran’s moral seriousness as related to
> to rubble. As for Khalil, his life’s history has             various aspects of life, says Walbridge, the reader
> been indelibly written by God with glittering let-           should not expect from Gibran prescriptions for
> ters upon the pages of the people’s hearts.                  living, reforms for reordering society, reasoned
> While Nymphs of the Valley, Spirits Rebel-              ethics, rational theology, conceptual depth, nor a
> lious, and Broken Wings are all set in Lebanon,              coherent philosophy. Gibran tends to express his
> they set the stage for Gibran’s English works.               moral and spiritual views in terms of dichotomies.
> The advent of The Madman in 1918 marked                      He romanticizes the country and demonizes
> Gibran’s transition to, and adoption of, English             cities. Society and religion, for Gibran, are
> as a universal language for literary purposes.               systems of oppression, whereas nature and love
> Lebanon recedes from the foreground and be-                  are what benefit humanity most. (Other scholars
> comes a background, while remaining the bed-                 have commented on Gibran’s persistent dualisms
> rock of Gibran’s basic orientation.                          as well, such as life and death, good and evil,
> In his early Arabic works, Gibran may be                love and hatred.) Gibran’s views do not represent
> described as a social reformer, in a visionary sort          practical teachings; as Walbridge points out, we
> of way. In his English works, Gibran is more of              cannot desert our cities to live as hermits at the
> a spiritual guide, offering counsels for edification         edge of the Qadisha Gorge nor can we all escape
> and personal transformation. But despite his                 to live as couples in idyllic cottages overlooking
> strengths in these respects, Gibran had serious              Beirut in total abandonment of society.
> limitations that must be acknowledged as well.                    What, then, are Gibran’s contributions in the
> John Walbridge, an authority on Gibran and                   final analysis? In the Arab world, Gibran’s influ-
> translator of Gibran’s The Storm (1998) and The              ence was as profound as it was pervasive. What
> Beloved (1998) from the original Arabic, has                 came to be known as “Gibranian style” was
> framed some of the most persuasive critical                  marked, among other elements, by the electric
> analysis of Gibran’s shortcomings. Walbridge                 cadence of his rhythms, in the drumbeat of his
> notes that Gibran is not adept at narrative and              incantations and repetitions; by the charm of his
> that “his narrative harp has only a few strings”             new poetic style; in his inventive and selective
> (2001, online) As a writer, says Walbridge, Gib-             choice of words, in brave abandon of arid Arabic
> ran lacks the skills of subtle characterization or           poetic diction; through the evocative power of
> complex plots. Everything Gibran says is deadly              words with emotional immediacy; by rhetorical
> serious. There is never a trace of humor or irony            reliance on “value words” such as beauty, love,
> in his work (nor in his art), and thus he has a              power, and justice; through structural use of bibli-
> significant limitation on his range of expression.           cal images that inform and sustain his narratives;
> Walbridge sees Gibran’s English prose as preten-             and by dint of soul-deep symbolism—that is, the
> tious, his ideas as excessively mystical or just             cage (symbol of oppression), the forest (symbol
> trite; Gibran’s aesthetic is Arabic, not American.           of sanctuary, freedom, renewal, and immortality),
> Like one of his paintings, each of Gibran’s liter-           the storm or tempest (symbol of destruction and
> 
> KAHLIL GIBRAN
> 
> regeneration), the mist (symbol of mystery and                American it may or may not be. If a work such
> eternity, or that which obscures), the child                  as The Prophet has entered the canon of “world
> (symbol of perceptiveness and equilibrium), the               literature,” then surely its author ought to be
> river (symbol of the course of human life), the               viewed as belonging to the American literary hall
> sea (symbol of the great spirit or the greater self),         of fame as well.
> the bird (symbol of the soul’s search for the                      Beyond the question of whether The Prophet
> divine), the mirror (symbol of contemplation),                is an American classic, however, or whether Kah-
> the night (symbol of soporific ignorance), and the
> lil Gibran ought to be recognized, at long last, as
> dawn (symbol spiritual awakening).
> an American writer worthy of note, there is the
> These carry over into Gibran’s work in                    question of Gibran’s significance for the twenty-
> English, which is stylistically marked by a lyrical           first century. Those who promote the idea of his
> impulse, by rebellion against literary norms and              importance today do so not for what he was but
> established forms, and by impressionistic imagery
> for what he represents; his importance is in his
> with evocative power to effect emotional
> message of reconciliation, of peace, of
> elevation. Gibran’s ideological leitmotifs in-
> brotherhood. Gibran has iconic value in the way
> clude—to name some of the more obvious
> he represents the embrace of East and West. It is
> themes—the veneration of love, a pantheistic
> quest for the mysterious in nature, the rejection             Gibran’s greater self, as it were, that really mat-
> of religious and political corruption, a passion for          ters—not the person, but the paradigm.
> freedom, and a belief in human brotherhood.                        In a speech in December 1995 to celebrate
> the one hundredth anniversary of Gibran’s arrival
> in America, Suheil Bushrui spoke of the impor-
> SIGNIFICANCE OF KAHLIL GIBRAN AND THE                        tance of Gibran’s work and ideas for our time,
> PROPHET                                       and he pointed out the dual recognition that Gib-
> On July 9, 2009, the International Astronomical               ran has received in the academic and public
> Union officially approved the naming of a crater,             spheres in the United States—as represented by
> one hundred kilometers in diameter, on the planet             the University of Maryland’s creation of the Kah-
> Mercury after Kahlil Gibran, thanks to the efforts            lil Gibran chair and the dedication of the Kahlil
> of Nelly Mouawad, a postdoctoral researcher in                Gibran Memorial Garden in Washington, D.C.
> the astronomy department at the University of                 Beyond this national recognition, said Bushrui,
> Maryland, in association with the university’s                Gibran also occupies a distinctive position among
> director of the Kahlil Gibran Chair for Values                the world’s great writers because of the universal
> and Peace, Suheil Bushrui. Even though a crater               appeal that The Prophet has enjoyed
> on Mercury has now been named after Gibran,                   internationally. Gibran’s “stature and importance
> his identity as a significant American writer is              increase as time passes,” said Bushrui, because
> still in question. Where is Gibran’s “crater” in              “his message remains ѧ potent and as meaningful
> the American literary critical landscape? Why is              today” (“Kahlil Gibran of America,” 1996,
> Gibran still largely “off the map” in terms of                online). With “its emphasis on the healing
> critical acclaim?                                             process, the universal, the natural, the eternal, the
> Whether or not The Prophet is an American                timeless,” he continued, Gibran’s work “repre-
> classic, and whether Gibran himself will be ac-               sents a powerful affirmation of faith in the hu-
> cepted by critics as an American writer of note,              man spirit.” His name, says Bushrui, “perhaps
> Gibran’s legacy transcends that category itself.              more than that of any other modern writer, is
> The Prophet, after all, falls outside conventional            synonymous with peace, spiritual values and
> frames of reference. It resists categorization. Yet,          international understanding.” Gibran’s work
> to be a great American author is, perhaps, to write           imbues purely secular concerns with sacred
> a work of universal quality, of enduring interna-             significance, by enlarging individual identity with
> tional appeal, irrespective of how qualitatively              the “greater self” of the world at large. Indeed,
> 
> KAHLIL GIBRAN
> 
> perhaps the most important element in Gibran’s                Universities, such as Harvard, Yale, and Princeton,
> work for our own time is that it conveys the                  do not teach him in their departments of English or
> quintessential spiritual unity of Islam and Chris-            Comparative Literature, and it is only recently that
> he came to be taught, but in a non-Ivy League
> tianity and of all religions. In his parable “War             University, that of Maryland, by Professor Suhayl
> and the Small Nations” (which is immediately                  Bushrui. The Prophet has passed the test of time as
> preceded by “The Greater Self” in The                         an enduring work. Indeed, ten million readers can-
> Forerunner), Gibran’s social message is embod-                not be entirely wrong. Yet, The Prophet has not
> ied in the words of a mother sheep to her lamb                passed the threshold of the canon of American
> literature.
> (representing the “small nations”), as two eagles
> (p. 4)
> (powerful, hegemonic nations), each intent on
> devouring the lamb, were fighting in the sky                Although The Prophet has entered the canon of
> overhead: “Pray, my little one, pray in your heart          world literature, Gibran does not appear in
> that God may make peace between your winged                 anthologies of American literature, even in col-
> brothers” (p. 67).                                          lections known for cultural diversity such as the
> In the province of universal imagination,              prestigious The Heath Anthology of American
> Gibran’s “greater self” of the individual is                Literature (where there is not a single line from
> transposed to the greater, collective identity not          Gibran). This critical indifference to the author of
> only of nature, but of society itself. Throughout           America’s bestselling book (apart from the Bible)
> his works (both English and Arabic), Gibran                 goes far in explaining why The Prophet has been
> draws from a palette of natural, spatial, and situ-         so marginalized in American literary history. That
> ational metaphors to convey the notion of an                indifference is hardly disinterest; rather, it is a
> interior, hidden, expansive, liberated, powerful,           studied disinheritance of something distinctively
> and spiritual “self”—one that has compassion for            unique in the American literary heritage, and has
> others. This “greater self” is not ontologically            the paradoxical effect of raising serious questions
> swallowed up by one vast, undifferentiated Over-            about the critical recognition of greatness in the
> soul in the Emersonian sense. Rather, the “greater          face of so overwhelming an audience response. It
> self” is greater by virtue of its identity with—not         therefore makes perfect sense that Gibran’s
> its identity as—the universe of other souls. Thus           masterpiece The Prophet ought, at long last, to
> Gibran’s “greater self”—rather than referring to            be included in the American canon.
> some amorphous, atavistic “Oversoul”—is the                      The Prophet is not without honor save in its
> socially “wider self,” progressively self-                  own country. Perhaps it’s time for that to change.
> actualized in part-to-whole harmony with the hu-
> man family, or “the world.”
> Gibran’s call for reconciliation, for the
> realization of a “greater self,” addressed not only
> the need for Christian-Muslim understanding that
> Selected Bibliography
> seems so relevant today; it acknowledged the
> need for religious tolerance and understanding
> that would encompass all religions and all                  WORKS OF KAHLIL GIBRAN
> peoples. And, as the scholar Irfan Shahid points
> out, Gibran’s poetry and ideas have stood the test            ENGLISH WORKS
> of time, the best of all critics. Nonetheless:              The Madman: His Parables and Poems. New York: Alfred
> A. Knopf, 1918.
> Although his Prophet has sold, according to one           The Forerunner: His Parables and Poems. New York: Al-
> estimate, ten million copies, thus outselling all           fred A. Knopf, 1920.
> American poets from Whitman to Eliot, the Ameri-          The Prophet. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1923. Reprint.
> can literary establishment has not given him the            Annotated, edited, and with an introduction by Suheil
> recognition he deserves, and has not admitted him           Bushrui. Oxford and Boston: Oneworld Publications,
> to the American literary canon. The Ivy League              1995.
> 
> KAHLIL GIBRAN
> 
> Sand and Foam: A Book of Aphorisms. New York: Alfred A.                   CORRESPONDENCE
> Knopf, 1926.                                                        Kahlil Gibran: A Self-Portrait. Translated by Anthony R.
> Jesus, the Son of Man: His Words and His Deeds. New                     Ferris. New York: Citadel Press, 1959; London: Heine-
> York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1928.                                          mann, 1960.
> The Earth Gods. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1931.                      The Letters of Kahlil Gibran and Mary Haskell. Edited by
> Annie Salem Otto. Houston: Otto, 1970.
> The Wanderer: His Parables and His Sayings. New York:
> Alfred A. Knopf, 1932.                                              Beloved Prophet: The Love Letters of Kahlil Gibran and
> Mary Haskell and Her Private Journal. Edited by Virginia
> The Garden of the Prophet. New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
> Hilu. New York: Knopf, 1972.
> 1933. (Published posthumously in a volume completed
> by Barbara Young. Whether this work is authentically                Unpublished Gibran Letters to Ameen Rihani. Edited and
> Gibran’s depends on how much of it was completed by                   translated by Suheil Bushrui and Salma Kuzbari. Beirut:
> Barbara Young herself, as it is really the work of two                Rihani House for the World Lebanese Cultural Union,
> authors.)                                                             1972.
> Blue Flame: The Love Letters of Kahlil Gibran to May
> Ziadah. Edited and translated by Suheil Bushrui and
> ARABIC WORKS AND TRANSLATIONS INTO ENGLISH                            Salma Kuzbari. Harlow, U.K.: Longman, 1983. Revised
> Al-Músiqá. New York: Al-Mohajer, 1905.                                  as Gibran: Love Letters: The Love Letters of Kahlil Gib-
> ‘Ará’is al-Murúj. New York: Al-Mohajer, 1906. Translated                ran to May Ziadah. Oxford: Oneworld, 1995.
> by H. M. Nahmad as Nymphs of the Valley. New York:                 “Gibran’s Unpublished Letters to Archbishop Antonious
> Knopf, 1948; London: Heinemann, 1948; and by Juan R.                 Bashir.” Translated by George N. El-Hage. Journal of
> I. Cole as Spirit Brides. Santa Cruz, Calif.: White Cloud            Arabic Literature 36, no. 2:172–182 (2005).
> Press, 1993.
> al-Arwáh al-Mutamarrida. New York: al-Mohajer, 1908.                      JOURNALS, MANUSCRIPTS, AND DRAWINGS
> Translated by H. M. Nahmad as Spirits Rebellious. New              Twenty Drawings. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1919.
> York: Knopf, 1948; London: Heinemann, 1948. Also
> Gibran’s manuscripts, notebooks, and papers pertaining to
> translated by Anthony Rizcallah Ferris as Spirits
> The Prophet; The Madman: His Parables and Poems;
> Rebellious. New York: Philosophical Library, 1947.
> The Forerunner: His Parables and Poems; and The Earth
> al-Ajniha al-Mutakassira. New York: Mir’át al-Gharb, 1912.              Gods are held in the William H. Shehadi Collection of
> Translated by Anthony R. Ferris as The Broken Wings.                 Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931), Department of Rare Books
> New York: Citadel Press, 1957; London: Heinemann,                    and Special Collections, Princeton University Library,
> 1966. Also translated by Juan R. I. Cole. Ashland, Ore:              Princeton, N.J.
> White Cloud Press, 1998.
> Dam’a wa Ibtisáma. New York: Atlantic, 1914. Translated
> by H. M. Nahmad as A Tear and a Smile. New York:                       COLLECTED WORKS
> Knopf, 1950; London: Heinemann, 1950.                              The Essential Gibran. Edited and translated by Suheil
> al-Mawákib. New York: Mir’át al-Gharb, 1919. Translated                 Bushrui. Oxford: Oneworld, 2007.
> by M. F. Kheirallah as The Procession. New York: Arab-             The Collected Works, With Eighty-four Illustrations by the
> American Press, 1947.                                                Author. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007. (This is the
> al-’Awásif. Cairo: al-Hilál, 1920. Translated by John Wal-              edition cited throughout this essay.)
> bridge as The Storm: Stories and Prose Poems. Santa                The Complete Works of Khalil Gibran. Delhi: Indiana
> Cruz, Calif.: White Cloud Press, 1993.                               Publishing House, 2007.
> Iram, Dhát al-’Imád. Published posthumously in al-Majmú’a             The Treasured Writings of Kahlil Gibran. Edited by Martin
> al-Kámila li-Mu’allifát Jubrán Khalil Jubrán; ed.                    L. Wolf, Anthony R. Ferris, and Andrew Deb Sherfan.
> Míkhá’íl Nu’aymí. 2 vols.; Beirut: Dár al-Sខ ádir, 1964.             Edison, N.J.: Castle Books, 2005.
> (Standard Arabic edition of Gibran’s collected Arabic
> publications and translations of Gibran’s English works
> by Antខúniyús Bashír and ‘Abd al-Latខíf Sharára. Often             BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL STUDIES
> reprinted.). Translated by A. R. Ferris as “Iram, City of          Bush, George H. W. “Remarks at the Dedication Ceremony
> Lofty Pillars” in Spiritual Sayings. New York: Philosophi-           for the Khalil Gibran Memorial Garden, May 24, 1991”
> cal Library, 1947.                                                   ( h t t p : / / b u l k . r e s o u r c e . o rg / g p o . g o v / p a p e r s / 1 9 9 1 /
> al-Badá’i’ wa’l-Tará’if . Cairo: Yúsuf Bustání, 1923.                   1991_vol1_556.pdf).
> Kalimát Jubrán. Cairo: Yúsuf Bustání, 1927. Translated by             Bushrui, Suheil. Kahlil Gibran of Lebanon. Gerrards Cross,
> A. R. Ferris as Spiritual Sayings. New York: Citadel                 U.K.: Colin Smythe, 1987.
> Press, 1962.                                                       ———. “Kahlil Gibran of America.” Arab American Dia-
> al-Sanábil (Heads of Grain; New York: al-Sá’ihខ , 1929.                 logue 7, no. 3:1–10 (January-February 1996).
> 
> KAHLIL GIBRAN
> 
> ———. “Introduction.” In The First International Confer-              ———. “‘A Strange Little Book.’” Saudi Aramco World,
> ence on Kahlil Gibran: The Poet of the Culture of Peace,              March-April 1983, pp. 8–9. (Online at http://www.
> December 9–12, 1999. Bethseda, Md.: University of                     saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/198302/a.strange.little.book.
> Maryland Press, 1999. P. 7. (Online at http://www.                    htm)
> steinergraphics.com/pdf/gibranprogramme.pdf)                       Nassar, Eugene Paul. “Cultural Discontinuity in the Works
> Bushrui, Suheil, and Joe Jenkins. Kahlil Gibran, Man and                of Kahlil Gibran.” MELUS 7, no. 2:21–36 (summer
> Poet: A New Biography. Oxford: Oneworld, 1998.                        1980). Reprinted in his Essays Critical and Metacritical.
> Gibran, Jean. “The Symbolic Quest of Kahlil Gibran: The                 Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press,
> Arab as Artist in America.” In Crossing the Waters:                   1983.
> Arabic-Speaking Immigrants to the United States Before             Pierce, Patricia Jobe. “Gibran, Kahlil.” In American National
> 1940. Edited by Eric J. Hooglund. Washington, D.C.:                   Biography. Edited by John A. Garraty and Mark C.
> Smithsonian Institution Press, 1987. Pp. 161–171.                     Carnes. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.
> Gibran, Jean, and Kahlil Gibran. Kahlil Gibran: His Life             “The Prophet’s Profits.” Time, 86, no. 7 (August 13, 1965).
> and World. 1974. Rev. ed. Northampton, Mass.: Interlink,           Salma, Khadra Jayyusi. “Gibran Khalil Gibran (1883–
> 1998.                                                                 1931).” In Trends and Movements in Modern Arabic
> Hanna, Suhail ibn-Salim. “Gibran and Whitman: Their Liter-              Poetry. Vol. 1. Edited by Khadra Jayyusi Salma and
> ary Dialogue.” Literature East and West 12: 174–198                  Christopher Tingley. Leiden: Brill, 1977. Pp. 91–107.
> (1968).                                                           Shahíd, Irfan. “Gibran and the American Literary Canon:
> Hawi, Khalil S. Kahlil Gibran: His Background, Character,               The Problem of The Prophet.” In Tradition, Modernity,
> and Works. Beirut: Arab Institute for Research and                   and Postmodernity in Arabic Literature: Essays in Honor
> Publishing, 1972. (First published in the Oriental Series            of Professor Issa J. Boullata. Edited by Issa J. Boullata,
> of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at the American                  Kamal Abdel-Malek, and Wael B. Hallaq. Leiden: Brill,
> University of Beirut in 1963.)                                       2000. Pp. 321–334.
> Irwin, Robert. “I Am a False Alarm.” London Review of                Shahid, Irfan. “Gibran Kahlil Gibran Between Two
> Books, September 3, 1998, p. 17. (Review of Kahlil Gib-              Millennia.” Farhat J. Ziadeh Distinguished Lecture in
> ran: Man and Poet, by Suheil Bushrui and Joe Jenkins,                Arab and Islamic Studies, Department of Near Eastern
> and Prophet: The Life and Times of Kahlil Gibran, by                 Languages and Civilization, University of Washington,
> Robin Waterfield.)                                                   Seattle, April 30, 2002. (Online at http://depts.washington.
> edu/nelc/ziadehseries.html)
> Karam, Antoine G. “Gibran’s Concept of Modernity.” In
> Shehadi, William. Kahlil Gibran, a Prophet in the Making:
> Tradition and Modernity in Arabic Literature. Edited by
> Book Based on Manuscript Pages of “The Madman,”
> Issa J. Boullata and Terri DeYoung. Fayetteville:
> “The Forerunner,” “The Prophet,” and “The Earth
> University of Arkansas Press, 1997. Pp. 29–42.
> Gods.” Beirut: American University of Beirut, 1991.
> Knopf, Alfred A. “Random Recollections of a Publisher.”              Summers, D. S. “The Source of ‘Ask Not.’” American
> Massachusetts Historical Society Boston Proceedings 73:               Scholar 74, no. 2:142–143 (spring 2005).
> 92–103 (1961).
> Walbridge, John. “Gibran: His Aesthetic and his Moral
> Kusumastuty, M. Imelda. “The Mode of Expression and                     Universe.” al-Hikmat (Lahore) 21:47–66 (2001). (Online
> Themes of Kahlil Gibran’s Aphorism in The Prophet.”                   at http://www-personal.umich.edu/˜jrcole/gibran/papers/
> Phenomena: A Journal of Language and Literature 8, no.                gibwal1.htm)
> 2:8–15 (October 2004).                                             ———. “Kahlil Gibran.” In Twentieth-Century Arab Writers.
> Majdoubeh, Ahmad Y. “Gibran’s The Procession in the                     Edited by Majd Yaser al-Mallah and Coeli Fitzpatrick.
> Transcendentalist Context.” Arabica 49, no. 4:477–493                 Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. 346. Detroit: Gale
> (2002).                                                               Cengage Learning, 2009.
> Naimy, Mikhail. Kahlil Gibran: A Biography. New York:                Waterfield, Robin. Prophet: The Life and Times of Kahlil
> Philosophical Library, 1950.                                          Gibran. New York: St. Martin’s, 1998.
> ———. Kahlil Gibran: His Life and His Works. Beirut:                  Wild, Stefan. “Friedrich Nietzsche and Gibran Kahlil
> Khayyat, 1964.                                                        Gibran.” Abhath 22:47–58 (1969).
> ———. “The Mind and Thought of Khalil Gibran.” Journal                Young, Barbara. This Man from Lebanon. New York: Knopf,
> of Arabic Literature 5, no. 1:55–71 (1974).                           1945.
>
> — *Kahlil Gibran (Used by permission of the curator)*