Gibran Khalil Gibran ( ar, جُبْرَان خَلِيل جُبْرَان, , , or , ; January 6, 1883 – April 10, 1931), usually referred to in English as Kahlil Gibran (
pronounced ), was a Lebanese-American writer, poet and
visual artist
The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, design, crafts and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual art, and textile arts al ...
, also considered a philosopher although he himself rejected the title. He is best known as the author of ''
The Prophet'', which was first published in the United States in 1923 and has since become one of the
best-selling books of all time, having been
translated into more than 100 languages.
Born in a village of the Ottoman-ruled
Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate
The Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate (1861–1918, ar, مُتَصَرِّفِيَّة جَبَل لُبْنَان, translit=Mutasarrifiyyat Jabal Lubnān; ) was one of the Ottoman Empire's subdivisions following the Tanzimat reform. After 1861, ther ...
to a
Maronite
The Maronites ( ar, الموارنة; syr, ܡܖ̈ܘܢܝܐ) are a Christian ethnoreligious group native to the Eastern Mediterranean and Levant region of the Middle East, whose members traditionally belong to the Maronite Church, with the larges ...
family, the young Gibran immigrated with his mother and siblings to the United States in 1895. As his mother worked as a seamstress, he was enrolled at a school in
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
, where his creative abilities were quickly noticed by a teacher who presented him to photographer and publisher
F. Holland Day. Gibran was sent back to his native land by his family at the age of fifteen to enroll at the
Collège de la Sagesse
The Collège de la Sagesse ( ar, کلیة الحکمة) is a Lebanese major national and Catholic school founded in 1875 by the Maronite archbishop of Beirut at the time, Joseph Debs who laid the first stone of the original building. The school ...
in
Beirut
Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...
. Returning to Boston upon his youngest sister's death in 1902, he lost his older half-brother and his mother the following year, seemingly relying afterwards on his remaining sister's income from her work at a dressmaker's shop for some time.
In 1904, Gibran's drawings were displayed for the first time at Day's studio in Boston, and his first book in Arabic was published in 1905 in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. With the financial help of a newly met benefactress,
Mary Haskell, Gibran studied art in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
from 1908 to 1910. While there, he came in contact with Syrian political thinkers promoting rebellion in Ottoman Syria after the
Young Turk Revolution
The Young Turk Revolution (July 1908) was a constitutionalist revolution in the Ottoman Empire. The Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), an organization of the Young Turks movement, forced Sultan Abdul Hamid II to restore the Ottoman Constit ...
;
some of Gibran's writings, voicing the same ideas as well as
anti-clericalism
Anti-clericalism is opposition to religious authority, typically in social or political matters. Historical anti-clericalism has mainly been opposed to the influence of Roman Catholicism. Anti-clericalism is related to secularism, which seeks to ...
,
would eventually be banned by the Ottoman authorities.
In 1911, Gibran settled in New York, where his first book in English, ''
The Madman'', would be published by
Alfred A. Knopf
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. () is an American publishing house that was founded by Alfred A. Knopf Sr. and Blanche Knopf in 1915. Blanche and Alfred traveled abroad regularly and were known for publishing European, Asian, and Latin American writers in ...
in 1918, with writing of ''The Prophet'' or ''
The Earth Gods
''The Earth Gods'' is a literary work written by poet and philosopher Kahlil Gibran. It was originally published in 1931, also the year of the author's death. The story is structured as a dialogue between three unnamed earth gods, only referred t ...
'' also underway. His visual artwork was shown at Montross Gallery in 1914, and at the galleries of
M. Knoedler & Co. in 1917. He had also been corresponding remarkably with
May Ziadeh
May Elias Ziadeh ( ; ar, مي إلياس زيادة, ; 11 February 1886 – 17 October 1941) was a Lebanese people, Lebanese-Palestinians, Palestinian poet, essayist, and translator, who wrote many different works both in Arabic language, Ar ...
since 1912.
In 1920, Gibran re-founded the
Pen League
The Mahjar ( ar, المهجر, translit=al-mahjar, one of its more literal meanings being "the Arab people, Arab diaspora") was a literary movement started by Arabic-speaking writers who had emigrated to America from Ottoman Empire, Ottoman-ruled L ...
with fellow
Mahjar
The Mahjar ( ar, المهجر, translit=al-mahjar, one of its more literal meanings being "the Arab diaspora") was a literary movement started by Arabic-speaking writers who had emigrated to America from Ottoman-ruled Lebanon, Syria and Palestine ...
i poets. By the time of his death at the age of 48 from
cirrhosis
Cirrhosis, also known as liver cirrhosis or hepatic cirrhosis, and end-stage liver disease, is the impaired liver function caused by the formation of scar tissue known as fibrosis due to damage caused by liver disease. Damage causes tissue repai ...
and incipient
tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in ...
in one lung, he had achieved literary fame on "both sides of the Atlantic Ocean," and ''The Prophet'' had already been translated into German and French. His body was transferred to his birth village of
Bsharri
Bsharri ( ar, بشرّي ''Bšarrī''; syr, ܒܫܪܝ; also Romanized ''Becharre'', ''Bcharre'', ''Bsharre'', (''Bcharre El Arez بشرّي الارز'') is a town at an altitude of about to . It is located in the Bsharri District of the Nort ...
(in present-day Lebanon), to which he had bequeathed all future royalties on his books, and where a
museum
A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...
dedicated to his works now stands.
As worded by
Suheil Bushrui
Suheil Badi Bushrui (September 14, 1929 – September 2, 2015) was a professor, author, poet, critic, translator, and peace maker.
He was a prominent scholar in regard to the life and works of the Lebanese-American author and poet Kahlil Gibran.
...
and
Joe Jenkins
Joseph Daniel Jenkins (October 12, 1890 – June 21, 1974) was an American right-handed Major League Baseball catcher who played for the St. Louis Browns in 1914 and the Chicago White Sox in 1917 and 1919.
Jenkins was born in Shelbyville, Tennes ...
, Gibran's life has been described as one "often caught between
Nietzschean
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) developed his philosophy during the late 19th century. He owed the awakening of his philosophical interest to reading Arthur Schopenhauer's ''Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung'' (''The World as Will and Repres ...
rebellion,
Blakean pantheism
Pantheism is the belief that reality, the universe and the cosmos are identical with divinity and a supreme supernatural being or entity, pointing to the universe as being an immanent creator deity still expanding and creating, which has ex ...
and
Sufi
Sufism ( ar, ''aṣ-ṣūfiyya''), also known as Tasawwuf ( ''at-taṣawwuf''), is a mystic body of religious practice, found mainly within Sunni Islam but also within Shia Islam, which is characterized by a focus on Islamic spirituality, ...
mysticism
Mysticism is popularly known as becoming one with God or the Absolute, but may refer to any kind of ecstasy or altered state of consciousness which is given a religious or spiritual meaning. It may also refer to the attainment of insight in u ...
."
Gibran discussed different themes in his writings, and explored diverse literary forms.
Salma Khadra Jayyusi
Salma Khadra Jayyusi ( ar, سلمى الخضراء الجيوسي; born 1926 or 1927) is a Palestinian poet, writer, translator and anthologist. She is the founder and director of the Project of Translation from Arabic (PROTA), which aims to provi ...
has called him "the single most important influence on
Arabic poetry
Arabic poetry ( ar, الشعر العربي ''ash-shi‘ru al-‘Arabīyyu'') is the earliest form of Arabic literature. Present knowledge of poetry in Arabic dates from the 6th century, but oral poetry is believed to predate that.
Arabic poetry ...
and
literature
Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...
during the first half of
he twentieth
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (pronoun), an English pronoun
* He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ
* He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets
* He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' ...
century," and he is still celebrated as a literary hero in Lebanon. At the same time, "most of Gibran's paintings expressed his personal vision, incorporating spiritual and mythological symbolism," with art critic Alice Raphael recognizing in the painter a
classicist
Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...
, whose work owed "more to the findings of
Da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, Drawing, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially res ...
than it
idto any modern insurgent." His "prodigious body of work" has been described as "an artistic legacy to people of all nations."
Life
Childhood
Gibran was born January 6, 1883, in the village of
Bsharri
Bsharri ( ar, بشرّي ''Bšarrī''; syr, ܒܫܪܝ; also Romanized ''Becharre'', ''Bcharre'', ''Bsharre'', (''Bcharre El Arez بشرّي الارز'') is a town at an altitude of about to . It is located in the Bsharri District of the Nort ...
in the
Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate
The Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate (1861–1918, ar, مُتَصَرِّفِيَّة جَبَل لُبْنَان, translit=Mutasarrifiyyat Jabal Lubnān; ) was one of the Ottoman Empire's subdivisions following the Tanzimat reform. After 1861, ther ...
, Ottoman Syria (modern-day
Lebanon
Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus li ...
).
[.] His parents, Khalil Sa'ad Gibran
and Kamila Rahmeh, the daughter of a
priest
A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particu ...
, were
Maronite
The Maronites ( ar, الموارنة; syr, ܡܖ̈ܘܢܝܐ) are a Christian ethnoreligious group native to the Eastern Mediterranean and Levant region of the Middle East, whose members traditionally belong to the Maronite Church, with the larges ...
Christian. As written by Bushrui and Jenkins, they would set for Gibran an example of tolerance by "refusing to perpetuate religious prejudice and bigotry in their daily lives."
Kamila's paternal grandfather had converted from
Islam
Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...
to Christianity.
She was thirty when Gibran was born, and Gibran's father, Khalil, was her third husband. Gibran had two younger sisters, Marianna and Sultana, and an older half-brother, Boutros, from one of Kamila's previous marriages. Gibran's family lived in poverty. In 1888, Gibran entered Bsharri's one-class school, which was run by a priest, and there he learnt the rudiments of
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
,
Syriac Syriac may refer to:
*Syriac language, an ancient dialect of Middle Aramaic
*Sureth, one of the modern dialects of Syriac spoken in the Nineveh Plains region
* Syriac alphabet
** Syriac (Unicode block)
** Syriac Supplement
* Neo-Aramaic languages a ...
, and
arithmetic
Arithmetic () is an elementary part of mathematics that consists of the study of the properties of the traditional operations on numbers— addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, exponentiation, and extraction of roots. In the 19th ...
.
Gibran's father initially worked in an
apothecary
''Apothecary'' () is a mostly archaic term for a medical professional who formulates and dispenses '' materia medica'' (medicine) to physicians, surgeons, and patients. The modern chemist (British English) or pharmacist (British and North Ameri ...
, but he had gambling debts he was unable to pay. He went to work for a local Ottoman-appointed administrator. In 1891, while acting as a tax collector, he was removed and his staff was investigated. Khalil was imprisoned for embezzlement, and his family's property was confiscated by the authorities. Kamila decided to follow her brother to the United States. Although Khalil was released in 1894, Kamila remained resolved and left for New York on June 25, 1895, taking Boutros, Gibran, Marianna and Sultana with her.
![-F](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/df/-F._Holland_Day-_MET_DP264342.jpg)
Kamila and her children settled in Boston's
South End, at the time the second-largest Syrian-Lebanese-American community in the United States. Gibran entered the Josiah Quincy School on September 30, 1895. School officials placed him in a special class for immigrants to learn English. His name was registered using the anglicized spelling 'Ka''h''lil Gibran'.
His mother began working as a seamstress peddler, selling lace and linens that she carried from door-to-door. His half-brother Boutros opened a shop. Gibran also enrolled in an art school at
Denison House, a nearby
settlement house
The settlement movement was a reformist social movement that began in the 1880s and peaked around the 1920s in United Kingdom and the United States. Its goal was to bring the rich and the poor of society together in both physical proximity and s ...
. Through his teachers there, he was introduced to the
avant-garde
The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...
Boston artist, photographer and publisher
F. Holland Day, who encouraged and supported Gibran in his creative endeavors. In March 1898, Gibran met
Josephine Preston Peabody
Josephine Preston Peabody (May 30, 1874 – December 4, 1922) was an American poet and dramatist.
Biography
Peabody was born in New York and educated at the Girls' Latin School, Boston, and at Radcliffe College.
In 1898, she was introduced ...
, eight years his senior, at an exhibition of Day's photographs "in which Gibran's face was a major subject." Gibran would develop a romantic attachment to her. The same year, a publisher used some of Gibran's drawings for book covers.
![Le Jubilé épiscopal de Mgr (](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b5/Le_Jubil%C3%A9_%C3%A9piscopal_de_Mgr_%28...%29Saint-Ouen_Th_bpt6k5611424t.jpg)
Kamila and Boutros wanted Gibran to absorb more of his own heritage rather than just the Western aesthetic culture he was attracted to. Thus, at the age of 15, Gibran returned to his homeland to study
Arabic literature
Arabic literature ( ar, الأدب العربي / ALA-LC: ''al-Adab al-‘Arabī'') is the writing, both as prose and poetry, produced by writers in the Arabic language. The Arabic word used for literature is '' Adab'', which is derived from ...
for three years at the
Collège de la Sagesse
The Collège de la Sagesse ( ar, کلیة الحکمة) is a Lebanese major national and Catholic school founded in 1875 by the Maronite archbishop of Beirut at the time, Joseph Debs who laid the first stone of the original building. The school ...
, a Maronite-run institute in
Beirut
Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...
, also learning
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
. In his final year at the school, Gibran created a student magazine with other students, including
Youssef Howayek
Youssef Saadallah Howayek ( ar, يوسف حويك; also Yusuf Huwayyik, Hoyek, Hoayek, Hawayek) (1883–1962) was a painter, sculptor and writer from Helta, in modern-day Lebanon.
Career
Youssef Howayek's father, Saadallah Howayek, was a Counc ...
(who would remain a lifelong friend of his),
[.] and he was made the "college poet."
Gibran graduated from the school at eighteen with high honors, then went to
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
to learn painting, visiting Greece, Italy, and Spain on his way there from Beirut. On April 2, 1902, Sultana died at the age of 14, from what is believed to have been
tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in ...
.
Upon learning about it, Gibran returned to Boston, arriving two weeks after Sultana's death.
The following year, on March 12, Boutros died of the same disease, with his mother passing from cancer on June 28.
[.] Two days later, Peabody "left him without explanation."
Marianna supported Gibran and herself by working at a dressmaker's shop.
Debuts, Mary Haskell, and second stay in Paris
![Mary Haskell by Kahlil Gibran](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/60/Mary_Haskell_by_Kahlil_Gibran.jpg)
Gibran held his first art exhibition of his drawings in January 1904 in Boston at Day's studio. During this exhibition, Gibran met
Mary Haskell, the headmistress of a girls' school in the city, nine years his senior. The two formed a friendship that lasted the rest of Gibran's life. Haskell would spend large sums of money to support Gibran and would also edit all of his English writings. The nature of their romantic relationship remains obscure; while some biographers assert the two were lovers but never married because Haskell's family objected, other evidence suggests that their relationship was never physically consummated. Gibran and Haskell were engaged briefly between 1910 and 1911. According to Joseph P. Ghougassian, Gibran had proposed to her "not knowing how to repay back in gratitude to Miss Haskell," but Haskell called it off, making it "clear to him that she preferred his friendship to any burdensome tie of marriage."
[.] Haskell would later marry Jacob Florance Minis in 1926, while remaining Gibran's close friend, patroness and benefactress, and using her influence to advance his career.
In 1905, Gibran's first published written work was ''A Profile of the Art of Music'', in Arabic, by ''Al-Mohajer''s printing department in
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
. His next work, ''Nymphs of the Valley'', was published the following year, also in Arabic. On January 27, 1908, Haskell introduced Gibran to her friend writer
Charlotte Teller
Charlotte Rose Teller, later Hirsch (March 3, 1876 – December 30, 1953), also using the pen name John Brangwyn, was an American writer and socialist active in New York City. She graduated in 1899 from the University of Chicago (BA). Her book The ...
, aged 31, and in February, to Émilie Michel (Micheline), a French teacher at Haskell's school,
[.] aged 19. Both Teller and Micheline agreed to pose for Gibran as models and became close friends of his. The same year, Gibran published ''Spirits Rebellious'' in Arabic, a novel deeply critical of secular and spiritual authority. According to
Barbara Young, a late acquaintance of Gibran, "in an incredibly short time it was burned in the market place in Beirut by priestly zealots who pronounced it 'dangerous, revolutionary, and poisonous to youth. The Maronite Patriarchate would let the rumor of his excommunication wander, but would never officially pronounce it.
![Plaque Gibran Khalil Gibran, 14 avenue du Maine, Paris 15e](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Plaque_Gibran_Khalil_Gibran%2C_14_avenue_du_Maine%2C_Paris_15e.jpg)
In July 1908, with Haskell's financial support, Gibran went to study art in Paris at the
Académie Julian
The Académie Julian () was a private art school for painting and sculpture founded in Paris, France, in 1867 by French painter and teacher Rodolphe Julian (1839–1907) that was active from 1868 through 1968. It remained famous for the number a ...
where he joined the ''atelier'' of
Jean-Paul Laurens
Jean-Paul Laurens (; 28 March 1838 – 23 March 1921) was a French painter and sculptor, and one of the last major exponents of the French Academic style.
Biography
Laurens was born in Fourquevaux and was a pupil of Léon Cogniet and Alexand ...
.
Gibran had accepted Haskell's offer partly so as to distance himself from Micheline, "for he knew that this love was contrary to his sense of gratefulness toward Miss Haskell"; however, "to his surprise Micheline came unexpectedly to him in Paris."
[.] "She became pregnant, but the pregnancy was
ectopic, and she had to have an abortion, probably in France."
Micheline had returned to the United States by late October.
Gibran would pay her a visit upon her return to Paris in July 1910, but there would be no hint of intimacy left between them.
By early February 1909, Gibran had "been working for a few weeks in the studio of
Pierre Marcel-Béronneau
Pierre Amédée Marcel-Béronneau (1869–1937) was a French Symbolist painter. He first worked at the École des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux at the same time as Fernand Sabatté then became "one of the most brilliant students" of Gustave Moreau at ...
",
and he "used his sympathy towards Béronneau as an excuse to leave the Académie Julian altogether."
In December 1909, Gibran started a series of pencil portraits that he would later call "The Temple of Art", featuring "famous men and women artists of the day" and "a few of Gibran's heroes from past times."
While in Paris, Gibran also entered into contact with Syrian political dissidents, in whose activities he would attempt to be more involved upon his return to the United States.
In June 1910, Gibran visited
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
with Howayek and
Ameen Rihani
Ameen Rihani (Amīn Fāris Anṭūn ar-Rīḥānī) ( ar, أمين الريحاني / ALA-LC: ''Amīn ar-Rīḥānī''; Freike, Lebanon, November 24, 1876 – September 13, 1940), was a Lebanese American writer, intellectual and political a ...
, whom Gibran had met in Paris. Rihani, who was six years older than Gibran, would be Gibran's role model for a while, and a friend until at least May 1912.
[.] Gibran biographer
Robin Waterfield
Robin Anthony Herschel Waterfield (born 1952) is a British classical scholar, translator, editor, and writer of children's fiction.
Career
Waterfield was born in 1952, and studied Classics at Manchester University, where he achieved a first clas ...
argues that, by 1918, "as Gibran's role changed from that of angry young man to that of prophet, Rihani could no longer act as a paradigm".
Haskell (in her private journal entry of May 29, 1924) and Howayek also provided hints at an enmity that began between Gibran and Rihani sometime after May 1912.
Return to the United States and growing reputation
Gibran sailed back to New York City from
Boulogne-sur-Mer
Boulogne-sur-Mer (; pcd, Boulonne-su-Mér; nl, Bonen; la, Gesoriacum or ''Bononia''), often called just Boulogne (, ), is a coastal city in Northern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department of Pas-de-Calais. Boulogne lies on the ...
on the
''Nieuw Amsterdam'' October 22, 1910, and was back to Boston by November 11.
By February 1911, Gibran had joined the Boston branch of a Syrian international organization, the Golden Links Society.
, . As worded by Waterfield, "the ostensible purpose of the society was the improvement of life for Syrians all around the world—which included their homeland, where improvement of life could mean taking a stand on Ottoman rule."
He lectured there for several months "in order to promote radicalism in independence and liberty" from Ottoman Syria. At the end of April, Gibran was staying in Teller's vacant flat at 164
Waverly Place
Waverly Place is a narrow street in the Greenwich Village section of the New York City borough of Manhattan, that runs from Bank Street to Broadway. Waverly changes direction roughly at its midpoint at Christopher Street, turning about 120 deg ...
in New York City.
"Gibran settled in, made himself known to his Syrian friends—especially Amin Rihani, who was now living in New York—and began both to look for a suitable studio and to sample the energy of New York."
As Teller returned on May 15, he moved to Rihani's small room at 28 West 9th Street.
Gibran then moved to one of the
Tenth Street Studio Building
The Tenth Street Studio Building, constructed in New York City in 1857, was the first modern facility designed solely to serve the needs of artists. It became the center of the New York art world for the remainder of the 19th century.
Situated at ...
's studios for the summer, before changing to another of its studios (number 30, which had a balcony, on the third story) in fall.
Gibran would live there until his death, referring to it as "The Hermitage."
[.] Over time, however, and "ostensibly often for reasons of health," he would spend "longer and longer periods away from New York, sometimes months at a time
.. staying either with friends in the countryside or with Marianna in Boston or on the
coast."
[.] His friendships with Teller and Micheline would wane; the last encounter between Gibran and Teller would occur in September 1912, and Gibran would tell Haskell in 1914 that he now found Micheline "repellent."
![May Ziadeh](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cd/May_Ziadeh.jpg)
In 1912, ''
Broken Wings'' was published in Arabic by the printing house of the periodical ''
Meraat-ul-Gharb
''Meraat-ul-Gharb'' ( ar, مرآة الغرب, translit=mirʾāt al-ġarb, translation=Mirror of the West) is an Arabic-language newspaper founded and published in New York City by Najeeb Diab in 1899. By 1911, it was considered "the best Arabic ...
'' in New York. Gibran presented a copy of his book to Lebanese writer
May Ziadeh
May Elias Ziadeh ( ; ar, مي إلياس زيادة, ; 11 February 1886 – 17 October 1941) was a Lebanese people, Lebanese-Palestinians, Palestinian poet, essayist, and translator, who wrote many different works both in Arabic language, Ar ...
, who lived in Egypt, and asked her to criticize it. As worded by Ghougassian,
Gibran and Ziadeh never met. According to
Shlomit C. Schuster, "whatever the relationship between Kahlil and May might have been, the letters in ''A Self-Portrait'' mainly reveal their literary ties. Ziadeh reviewed all of Gibran's books and Gibran replies to these reviews elegantly."
In 1913, Gibran started contributing to ''
Al-Funoon
''Al-Funoon'' ( ar, الفنون, translit=al-funūn, translation=The Arts) was an Arabic-language magazine founded in New York City by Nasib Arida in 1913 and co-edited by Mikhail Naimy, "so that he might display his knowledge of international l ...
'', an Arabic-language magazine that had been recently established by
Nasib Arida
Nasib Arida ( ar, نسيب عريضة, ; 1887–1946) was a Syrian-born poet and writer of the Mahjar movement and a founding member of the New York Pen League.
Life
Arida was born in Homs to a Syrian Greek Orthodox family where he receiv ...
and
Abd al-Masih Haddad
Abd al-Masih Haddad ( ar, عبد المسيح حداد, ; 1890–1963) was a Syrian writer of the Mahjar movement and journalist.. His magazine '' As-Sayeh'' (''The Traveler''), started in 1912 and continued until 1957, presented the works of pr ...
. ''A Tear and a Smile'' was published in Arabic in 1914. In December of the same year, visual artworks by Gibran were shown at the Montross Gallery, catching the attention of American painter
Albert Pinkham Ryder
Albert Pinkham Ryder (March 19, 1847 – March 28, 1917) was an American painter best known for his poetic and moody allegorical works and seascapes, as well as his eccentric personality. While his art shared an emphasis on subtle variations of ...
. Gibran wrote him a prose poem in January and would become one of the aged man's last visitors. After Ryder's death in 1917, Gibran's poem would be quoted first by
Henry McBride in the latter's posthumous tribute to Ryder, then by newspapers across the country, from which would come the first widespread mention of Gibran's name in America.
[.] By March 1915, two of Gibran's poems had also been read at the
Poetry Society of America
The Poetry Society of America is a literary organization founded in 1910 by poets, editors, and artists. It is the oldest poetry organization in the United States. Past members of the society have included such renowned poets as Witter Bynner, Ro ...
, after which
Corinne Roosevelt Robinson
Corinne Roosevelt Robinson (September 27, 1861 – February 17, 1933) was an American poet, writer and lecturer. She was also the younger sister of former President of the United States Theodore Roosevelt and an aunt of future First Lady of the ...
, the younger sister of
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt Jr. ( ; October 27, 1858 – January 6, 1919), often referred to as Teddy or by his initials, T. R., was an American politician, statesman, soldier, conservationist, naturalist, historian, and writer who served as the 26t ...
, stood up and called them "destructive and diabolical stuff"; nevertheless, beginning in 1918 Gibran would become a frequent visitor at Robinson's, also meeting her brother.
''The Madman'', the Pen League, and ''The Prophet''
Gibran acted as a secretary of the
Syrian–Mount Lebanon Relief Committee
The Syrian–Mount Lebanon Relief Committee ( ar, لجنة إعانة المنكوبين في سوريا ولبنان, translit=lajnat ināʿat al-mankūbīn fī sūriyā wa-lubnān) was an organization "formed in June of 1916 under the chairmanshi ...
, which was formed in June 1916. The same year, Gibran met Lebanese author
Mikhail Naimy
Mikha'il Nu'ayma ( ar, ميخائيل نعيمة, ; US legal name: Michael Joseph Naimy), better known in English by his pen name Mikhail Naimy (October 17, 1889 – February 28, 1988), was a Lebanese poet, novelist, and philosopher, famous for ...
after Naimy had moved from the
University of Washington
The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington.
Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...
to New York. Naimy, whom Gibran would nickname "Mischa," had previously made a review of ''Broken Wings'' in his article "The Dawn of Hope After the Night of Despair", published in ''Al-Funoon'', and he would become "a close friend and confidant, and later one of Gibran's biographers." In 1917, an exhibition of forty wash drawings was held at
Knoedler
M. Knoedler & Co. was an art dealership in New York City founded in 1846. When it closed in 2011, amid lawsuits for fraud, it was one of the oldest commercial art galleries in the US, having been in operation for 165 years.
History
Knoedler dat ...
in New York from January 29 to February 19 and another of thirty such drawings at Doll & Richards, Boston, April 16–28.
![Algunos miembros de Al-Rabita al-Qalamiyya](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Algunos_miembros_de_Al-Rabita_al-Qalamiyya.jpg)
While most of Gibran's early writings had been in Arabic, most of his work published after 1918 was in English. Such was ''
The Madman'', Gibran's first book published by
Alfred A. Knopf
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. () is an American publishing house that was founded by Alfred A. Knopf Sr. and Blanche Knopf in 1915. Blanche and Alfred traveled abroad regularly and were known for publishing European, Asian, and Latin American writers in ...
in 1918. ''The Processions'' (in Arabic) and ''Twenty Drawings'' were published the following year. In 1920, Gibran re-created the Arabic-language
New York Pen League
The Mahjar ( ar, المهجر, translit=al-mahjar, one of its more literal meanings being "the Arab diaspora") was a literary movement started by Arabic-speaking writers who had emigrated to America from Ottoman-ruled Lebanon, Syria and Palestine ...
with Arida and Haddad (its original founders), Rihani, Naimy, and other
Mahjar
The Mahjar ( ar, المهجر, translit=al-mahjar, one of its more literal meanings being "the Arab diaspora") was a literary movement started by Arabic-speaking writers who had emigrated to America from Ottoman-ruled Lebanon, Syria and Palestine ...
i writers such as
Elia Abu Madi
Elia Abu Madi (also known as Elia D. Madey; ar, إيليا أبو ماضي 'Lebanese Arabic Transliteration: , .) (May 15, 1890 – November 23, 1957) was a Lebanese-born American poet.
Early life
Abu Madi was born in the village of Al- ...
. The same year, ''The Tempests'' was published in Arabic in
Cairo
Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...
, and ''The Forerunner'' in New York.
In a letter of 1921 to Naimy, Gibran reported that doctors had told him to "give up all kinds of work and exertion for six months, and do nothing but eat, drink and rest"; in 1922, Gibran was ordered to "stay away from cities and city life" and had rented a cottage near the sea, planning to move there with Marianna and to remain until "this heart
egainedits orderly course"; this three-month summer in
Scituate
Scituate is the name of some communities in New England in the United States:
*Brunswick, Maine, formerly named Scituate
*Scituate, Massachusetts, a New England town
**Scituate (CDP), Massachusetts, an area in the town of Scituate
*Scituate, Rhode ...
, he later told Haskell, was a refreshing time, during which he wrote some of "the best Arabic poems" he had ever written.
[.]
![The Prophet (Gibran)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/The_Prophet_%28Gibran%29.jpg)
In 1923, ''The New and the Marvelous'' was published in Arabic in Cairo, whereas ''
The Prophet'' was published in New York. ''The Prophet'' sold well despite a cool critical reception. At a reading of ''The Prophet'' organized by rector
William Norman Guthrie
William Norman Guthrie also known as Norman de Lagutry (4 March 1868 – 9 December 1944) was an American clergyman and grandson of famous radical Frances Wright. His father, Eugène Picault de Lagutry, was the husband of Frances Sylva Piquepal d' ...
in
St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery, Gibran met poetess
Barbara Young, who would occasionally work as his secretary from 1925 until Gibran's death; Young did this work without remuneration. In 1924, Gibran told Haskell that he had been contracted to write ten pieces for ''
Al-Hilal'' in Cairo.
In 1925, Gibran participated in the founding of the periodical ''The New East''.
Later years and death
![Kahlil Gibran 1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/Kahlil_Gibran_1.jpg)
''Sand and Foam'' was published in 1926, and ''Jesus, the Son of Man'' in 1928. At the beginning of 1929, Gibran was diagnosed with an
enlarged liver
Hepatomegaly is the condition of having an enlarged liver. It is a non-specific medical sign having many causes, which can broadly be broken down into infection, hepatic tumours, or metabolic disorder. Often, hepatomegaly will present as an abdomi ...
.
In a letter dated March 26, he wrote to Naimy that "the rheumatic pains are gone, and the swelling has turned to something opposite". In a telegram dated the same day, he reported being told by the doctors that he "must not work for full year," which was something he found "more painful than illness." The last book published during Gibran's life was ''
The Earth Gods
''The Earth Gods'' is a literary work written by poet and philosopher Kahlil Gibran. It was originally published in 1931, also the year of the author's death. The story is structured as a dialogue between three unnamed earth gods, only referred t ...
'', on March 14, 1931.
Gibran was admitted to
St. Vincent's Hospital, Manhattan, on April 10, 1931, where he died the same day, aged forty-eight, after refusing the
last rites
The last rites, also known as the Commendation of the Dying, are the last prayers and ministrations given to an individual of Christian faith, when possible, shortly before death. They may be administered to those awaiting execution, mortall ...
. The cause of death was reported to be
cirrhosis
Cirrhosis, also known as liver cirrhosis or hepatic cirrhosis, and end-stage liver disease, is the impaired liver function caused by the formation of scar tissue known as fibrosis due to damage caused by liver disease. Damage causes tissue repai ...
of the liver with incipient
tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in ...
in one of his lungs.
Waterfield argues that the cirrhosis was contracted through excessive drinking of alcohol and was the only real cause of Gibran's death.
![Gibran Museum](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/Gibran_Museum.JPG)
Gibran had expressed the wish that he be buried in Lebanon. His body lay temporarily at Mount Benedict Cemetery in Boston, before it was taken on July 23 to
Providence, Rhode Island
Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts Bay ...
, and from there to Lebanon on the liner ''
Sinaia
Sinaia () is a town and a mountain resort in Prahova County, Romania. It is situated in the historical region of Muntenia. The town was named after the Sinaia Monastery of 1695, around which it was built. The monastery, in turn, is named after t ...
''. Gibran's body reached Bsharri in August and was deposited in a church near-by until a cousin of Gibran finalized the purchase of the Mar Sarkis Monastery, now the
Gibran Museum
The Gibran Museum, formerly the Monastery of Mar Sarkis, is a biographical museum in Bsharri, Lebanon, from Beirut. It is dedicated to the Lebanese writer, philosopher, and artist Kahlil Gibran.
The museum was an old cavern where many hermits ...
.
All future American royalties to his books were willed to his hometown of
Bsharri
Bsharri ( ar, بشرّي ''Bšarrī''; syr, ܒܫܪܝ; also Romanized ''Becharre'', ''Bcharre'', ''Bsharre'', (''Bcharre El Arez بشرّي الارز'') is a town at an altitude of about to . It is located in the Bsharri District of the Nort ...
, to be used for "civic betterment."
[.] Gibran had also willed the contents of his studio to Haskell.
In 1950, Haskell donated her personal collection of nearly one hundred original works of art by Gibran (including five oils) to the
Telfair Museum of Art
Telfair Museums, in the historic district of Savannah, Georgia, was the first public art museum in the Southern United States. Founded through the bequest of Mary Telfair (1791–1875), a prominent local citizen, and operated by the Georgia Histo ...
in
Savannah, Georgia
Savannah ( ) is the oldest city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia and is the county seat of Chatham County, Georgia, Chatham County. Established in 1733 on the Savannah River, the city of Savannah became the Kingdom of Great Br ...
. Haskell had been thinking of placing her collection at the Telfair as early as 1914. Her gift to the Telfair is the largest public collection of Gibran's visual art in the country.
Works
Writings
Forms, themes, and language
Gibran explored literary forms as diverse as "
poetry
Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...
,
parable
A parable is a succinct, didactic story, in prose or verse, that illustrates one or more instructive lessons or principles. It differs from a fable in that fables employ animals, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature as characters, w ...
s, fragments of conversation,
short stories
A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest t ...
,
fable
Fable is a literary genre: a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are anthropomorphized, and that illustrates or leads to a particular mo ...
s, political
essay
An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal a ...
s, letters, and
aphorism
An aphorism (from Greek ἀφορισμός: ''aphorismos'', denoting 'delimitation', 'distinction', and 'definition') is a concise, terse, laconic, or memorable expression of a general truth or principle. Aphorisms are often handed down by tra ...
s." Two
plays
Play most commonly refers to:
* Play (activity), an activity done for enjoyment
* Play (theatre), a work of drama
Play may refer also to:
Computers and technology
* Google Play, a digital content service
* Play Framework, a Java framework
* Pla ...
in English and five plays in Arabic were also published posthumously between 1973 and 1993; three unfinished plays written in English towards the end of Gibran's life remain unpublished (''The Banshee'', ''The Last Unction'', and ''The Hunchback or the Man Unseen''). Gibran discussed "such themes as religion, justice, free will, science, love, happiness, the soul, the body, and death" in his writings, which were "characterized by innovation breaking with forms of the past, by
symbolism
Symbolism or symbolist may refer to:
Arts
* Symbolism (arts), a 19th-century movement rejecting Realism
** Symbolist movement in Romania, symbolist literature and visual arts in Romania during the late 19th and early 20th centuries
** Russian sy ...
, an undying love for his native land, and a sentimental, melancholic yet often oratorical style."
About his language in general (both in Arabic and English),
Salma Khadra Jayyusi
Salma Khadra Jayyusi ( ar, سلمى الخضراء الجيوسي; born 1926 or 1927) is a Palestinian poet, writer, translator and anthologist. She is the founder and director of the Project of Translation from Arabic (PROTA), which aims to provi ...
remarks that "because of the spiritual and universal aspect of his general themes, he seems to have chosen a vocabulary less idiomatic than would normally have been chosen by a modern poet conscious of modernism in language." According to Jean Gibran and
Kahlil G. Gibran,
The poem "You Have Your Language and I Have Mine" (1924) was published in response to criticism of his Arabic language and style.
Influences and antecedents
According to Bushrui and Jenkins, an "inexhaustible" source of influence on Gibran was the
Bible
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...
, especially the
King James Version
The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version, is an Bible translations into English, English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, which was commissioned in 1604 and publis ...
. Gibran's literary oeuvre is also steeped in the Syriac tradition. According to Haskell, Gibran once told her that As worded by Waterfield, "the parables of the New Testament" affected "his parables and homilies" while "the poetry of some of the Old Testament books" affected "his devotional language and incantational rhythms." Annie Salem Otto notes that Gibran avowedly imitated the style of the Bible, whereas other Arabic authors from his time like Rihani unconsciously imitated the
Quran
The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Classical Arabic, Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation in Islam, revelation from God in Islam, ...
.
![William Blake by Thomas Phillips - cropped and downsized](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/71/William_Blake_by_Thomas_Phillips_-_cropped_and_downsized.jpg)
According to Ghougassian, the works of English poet
William Blake
William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual art of the Romantic Age. ...
"played a special role in Gibran's life", and in particular "Gibran agreed with Blake's ''apocalyptic vision'' of the world as the latter expressed it in his poetry and art."
[.] Gibran wrote of Blake as "the God-man," and of his drawings as "so far the profoundest things done in English—and his vision, putting aside his drawings and poems, is the most godly." According to George Nicolas El-Hage,
![Francis Marash (sic) by Kahlil Gibran](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/Francis_Marash_%28sic%29_by_Kahlil_Gibran.jpg)
Gibran was also a great admirer of Syrian poet and writer
Francis Marrash
Francis bin Fathallah bin Nasrallah Marrash (Arabic: , ; 1835,. 1836,. or 1837 – 1873 or 1874), also known as Francis al-Marrash or Francis Marrash al-Halabi, was a Syrian scholar, publicist, writer and poet of the Nahda or the Arab Renaissance, ...
, whose works Gibran had studied at the Collège de la Sagesse.
[.] According to
Shmuel Moreh
Shmuel Moreh ( he, שמואל מורה; December 22, 1932 – September 22, 2017) was a professor of Arabic Language and Literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a recipient of the Israel Prize in Middle Eastern studies in 1999. In ...
, Gibran's own works echo Marrash's style, including the structure of some of his works and "many of
isideas on enslavement, education, women's liberation, truth, the natural goodness of man, and the corrupted morals of society." Bushrui and Jenkins have mentioned Marrash's concept of universal love, in particular, in having left a "profound impression" on Gibran.
Another influence on Gibran was American poet
Walt Whitman
Walter Whitman (; May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among t ...
, whom Gibran followed "by pointing up the universality of all men and by delighting in nature. According to El-Hage, the influence of German philosopher
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, prose poet, cultural critic, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philosophy. He began his ...
"did not appear in Gibran's writings until ''The Tempests''."
[.] Nevertheless, although Nietzsche's style "no doubt fascinated" him, Gibran was "not the least under his spell":
Critics
Gibran was for a long time neglected by scholars and critics.
[.] Bushrui and John M. Munro have argued that "the failure of serious Western critics to respond to Gibran" resulted from the fact that "his works, though for the most part originally written in English, cannot be comfortably accommodated within the Western literary tradition."
According to El-Hage, critics have also "generally failed to understand the poet's conception of imagination and his fluctuating tendencies towards nature."
Visual art
Overview
According to Waterfield, "Gibran was confirmed in his aspiration to be a
Symbolist painter" after working in Marcel-Béronneau's studio in Paris.
Oil paint
Oil paint is a type of slow-drying paint that consists of particles of pigment suspended in a drying oil, commonly linseed oil. The viscosity of the paint may be modified by the addition of a solvent such as turpentine or white spirit, and varn ...
was Gibran's "preferred medium between 1908 and 1914, but before and after this time he worked primarily with pencil, ink,
watercolor
Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to t ...
and
gouache
Gouache (; ), body color, or opaque watercolor is a water-medium paint consisting of natural pigment, water, a binding agent (usually gum arabic or dextrin), and sometimes additional inert material. Gouache is designed to be opaque. Gouache h ...
." In a letter to Haskell, Gibran wrote that "among all the English artists
Turner
Turner may refer to:
People and fictional characters
*Turner (surname), a common surname, including a list of people and fictional characters with the name
* Turner (given name), a list of people with the given name
*One who uses a lathe for turni ...
is the very greatest." In her diary entry of March 17, 1911, Haskell recorded that Gibran told her he was inspired by J. M. W. Turner's painting ''
The Slave Ship
''The Slave Ship'', originally titled ''Slavers Throwing overboard the Dead and Dying—Typhon coming on'', is a painting by the British artist J. M. W. Turner, first exhibited at The Royal Academy of Arts in 1840.
Measuring in oil on canva ...
'' (1840) to utilize "raw colors
..one over another on the canvas
..instead of killing them first on the palette" in what would become the painting ''Rose Sleeves'' (1911,
Telfair Museums
Telfair Museums, in the historic district of Savannah, Georgia, was the first public art museum in the Southern United States. Founded through the bequest of Mary Telfair (1791–1875), a prominent local citizen, and operated by the Georgia Histo ...
).
Gibran created more than seven hundred visual artworks, including the Temple of Art portrait series. His works may be seen at the
Gibran Museum
The Gibran Museum, formerly the Monastery of Mar Sarkis, is a biographical museum in Bsharri, Lebanon, from Beirut. It is dedicated to the Lebanese writer, philosopher, and artist Kahlil Gibran.
The museum was an old cavern where many hermits ...
in Bsharri; the
Telfair Museums
Telfair Museums, in the historic district of Savannah, Georgia, was the first public art museum in the Southern United States. Founded through the bequest of Mary Telfair (1791–1875), a prominent local citizen, and operated by the Georgia Histo ...
in Savannah, Georgia; the
Museo Soumaya
The Museo Soumaya is a private museum in Mexico City and a non-profit cultural institution with two museum buildings in Mexico City — Plaza Carso and Plaza Loreto. It has over 66,000 works from 30 centuries of art including sculptures from Pre-H ...
in Mexico City;
Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha; the
Brooklyn Museum
The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown H ...
and the
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
in New York City; and the
Harvard Art Museums
The Harvard Art Museums are part of Harvard University and comprise three museums: the Fogg Museum (established in 1895), the Busch-Reisinger Museum (established in 1903), and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum (established in 1985), and four research ...
. A possible Gibran painting was the subject of a September 2008 episode of the PBS TV series ''
History Detectives
''History Detectives'' is a documentary television series on Public Broadcasting Service, PBS. It features investigations made by members of a small team of researchers to identify and/or authenticate items which may have historical significance or ...
''.
Gallery
Ages of Women by Kahlil Gibran - Soumaya.jpg, ''The Ages of Women'', 1910 (Museo Soumaya
The Museo Soumaya is a private museum in Mexico City and a non-profit cultural institution with two museum buildings in Mexico City — Plaza Carso and Plaza Loreto. It has over 66,000 works from 30 centuries of art including sculptures from Pre-H ...
)
Khalil Gibran - Autorretrato con musa, c. 1911.jpg, ''Self-Portrait and Muse'', 1911 (Museo Soumaya
The Museo Soumaya is a private museum in Mexico City and a non-profit cultural institution with two museum buildings in Mexico City — Plaza Carso and Plaza Loreto. It has over 66,000 works from 30 centuries of art including sculptures from Pre-H ...
)
Untitled (Rose Sleeves) by Kahlil Gibran.jpg, ''Untitled (Rose Sleeves)'', 1911 (Telfair Museums
Telfair Museums, in the historic district of Savannah, Georgia, was the first public art museum in the Southern United States. Founded through the bequest of Mary Telfair (1791–1875), a prominent local citizen, and operated by the Georgia Histo ...
)
Towards the Infinite (Kamila Gibran, mother of the artist) MET 87681.jpg, ''Towards the Infinite (Kamila Gibran, mother of the artist)'', 1916 (Metropolitan Museum of Arts
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 F ...
)
The Three are One by Kahlil Gibran.jpg, ''The Three are One'', 1918 (Telfair Museums
Telfair Museums, in the historic district of Savannah, Georgia, was the first public art museum in the Southern United States. Founded through the bequest of Mary Telfair (1791–1875), a prominent local citizen, and operated by the Georgia Histo ...
), also '' The Madman''s frontispiece
The Slave by Kahlil Gibran.jpg, ''The Slave'', 1920 (Harvard Art Museums
The Harvard Art Museums are part of Harvard University and comprise three museums: the Fogg Museum (established in 1895), the Busch-Reisinger Museum (established in 1903), and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum (established in 1985), and four research ...
)
Standing Figure and Child by Kahlil Gibran.jpg, ''Standing Figure and Child'', undated (Barjeel Art Foundation
Barjeel Art Foundation is a non-profit arts organisation based in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. The foundation was established in 2010 by Emirati commentator Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi to manage and exhibit his personal art collection. There are ov ...
)
Religious views
![Sketch for](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/33/Sketch_for_%22Jesus_the_Son_of_Man%22_MET_32.45.5_-_color.jpg)
According to Bushrui and Jenkins,
Besides Christianity, Islam and Sufism, Gibran's mysticism was also influenced by
theosophy
Theosophy is a religion established in the United States during the late 19th century. It was founded primarily by the Russian Helena Blavatsky and draws its teachings predominantly from Blavatsky's writings. Categorized by scholars of religion a ...
and
Jung
Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung's work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, philo ...
ian psychology.
Around 1911–1912, Gibran met with
ʻAbdu'l-Bahá
ʻAbdu'l-Bahá (; Persian language, Persian: , 23 May 1844 – 28 November 1921), born ʻAbbás ( fa, عباس), was the eldest son of Baháʼu'lláh and served as head of the Baháʼí Faith from 1892 until 1921. ʻAbdu'l-Bahá was later C ...
, the leader of the
Baháʼí Faith
The Baháʼí Faith is a religion founded in the 19th century that teaches the Baháʼí Faith and the unity of religion, essential worth of all religions and Baháʼí Faith and the unity of humanity, the unity of all people. Established by ...
who was visiting the United States, to draw his portrait. The meeting made a strong impression on Gibran.
One of Gibran's acquaintances later in life,
Juliet Thompson
Juliet Thompson (1873–1956) was an American painter, and disciple of Baháʼí Faith leader ʻAbdu'l-Bahá. She is perhaps best remembered for her book ''The Diary of Juliet Thompson'' though she also painted a life-sized portrait of ʻAbdu'l-Ba ...
, herself a Baháʼí, reported that Gibran was unable to sleep the night before meeting him.
This encounter with ʻAbdu'l-Bahá later inspired Gibran to write ''Jesus the Son of Man'' that portrays Jesus through the "words of seventy-seven contemporaries who knew him – enemies and friends: Syrians, Romans, Jews, priests, and poets." After the death of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, Gibran gave a talk on religion with Baháʼís and at another event with a viewing of a movie of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá, Gibran rose to proclaim in tears an exalted station of ʻAbdu'l-Bahá and left the event weeping.
[.]
In the poem "The Voice of the Poet" (), published in ''A Tear and a Smile'' (1914), Gibran wrote:
In 1921, Gibran participated in an "interrogatory" meeting on the question "Do We Need a New World Religion to Unite the Old Religions?" at
St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery.
Political thought
According to Young,
Nevertheless, Gibran called for the adoption of Arabic as a national language of Syria, considered from a geographic point of view, not as a political entity. When Gibran met
ʻAbdu'l-Bahá
ʻAbdu'l-Bahá (; Persian language, Persian: , 23 May 1844 – 28 November 1921), born ʻAbbás ( fa, عباس), was the eldest son of Baháʼu'lláh and served as head of the Baháʼí Faith from 1892 until 1921. ʻAbdu'l-Bahá was later C ...
in 1911–12, who
traveled to the United States partly to promote peace, Gibran admired the teachings on peace but argued that "young nations like his own" be freed from Ottoman control. Gibran also wrote the famous "Pity the Nation" poem during these years, posthumously published in ''
The Garden of the Prophet
''The Prophet'' is a book of 26 prose poetry fables written in English by the Lebanese-American poet and writer Kahlil Gibran. It was originally published in 1923 by Alfred A. Knopf. It is Gibran's best known work. ''The Prophet'' has been trans ...
''.
On May 26, 1916, Gibran wrote a letter to
Mary Haskell that reads: "The
famine in Mount Lebanon has been planned and instigated by the Turkish government. Already 80,000 have succumbed to starvation and thousands are dying every single day. The same process happened
with the Christian Armenians and applied to the Christians in Mount Lebanon." Gibran dedicated a poem named "Dead Are My People" to the fallen of the famine.
When the Ottomans were eventually driven from Syria during
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, Gibran sketched a euphoric drawing "Free Syria", which was then printed on the special edition cover of the Arabic-language paper ''
As-Sayeh'' (''The Traveler''; founded 1912 in New York by Haddad).
Adel Beshara reports that, "in a draft of a play, still kept among his papers, Gibran expressed great hope for national independence and progress. This play, according to
Khalil Hawi
Khalil Hawi (Arabic: خليل حاوي; Transliterated Khalīl Ḥāwī) (1919-1982) was one of the most famous Lebanese poets of the 20th century. In 1982, upon the Israeli invasion of Beirut in the midst of the Lebanese Civil War, Hawi committed ...
, 'defines Gibran's belief in
Syrian nationalism
Syrian nationalism, also known as Pan-Syrian nationalism (or pan-Syrianism), refers to the nationalism of the region of Syria, as a cultural or political entity known as "Greater Syria".
It should not be confused with the Arab nationalism that is ...
with great clarity, distinguishing it from both
Lebanese and
Arab nationalism
Arab nationalism ( ar, القومية العربية, al-Qawmīya al-ʿArabīya) is a nationalist ideology that asserts the Arabs are a nation and promotes the unity of Arab people, celebrating the glories of Arab civilization, the language an ...
, and showing us that nationalism lived in his mind, even at this late stage, side by side with internationalism.
According to Waterfield, Gibran "was not entirely in favour of
socialism
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...
(which he believed tends to seek the lowest common denominator, rather than bringing out the best in people)".
Legacy
The popularity of ''
The Prophet'' grew markedly during the 1960s with the
American counterculture
A counterculture is a culture whose values and norms of behavior differ substantially from those of mainstream society, sometimes diametrically opposed to mainstream cultural mores.Eric Donald Hirsch. ''The Dictionary of Cultural Literacy''. Hou ...
and then with the flowering of the
New Age
New Age is a range of spiritual or religious practices and beliefs which rapidly grew in Western society during the early 1970s. Its highly eclectic and unsystematic structure makes a precise definition difficult. Although many scholars conside ...
movements. It has remained popular with these and with the wider population to this day. Since it was first published in 1923, ''The Prophet'' has never been out of print. It has been
translated into more than 100 languages, making it among the top ten most translated books in history. It was one of the best-selling books of the twentieth century in the United States.
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), or simply Elvis, was an American singer and actor. Dubbed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as Cultural impact of Elvis Presley, one ...
referred to Gibran's ''The Prophet'' for the rest of his life after receiving his first copy as a gift from his girlfriend
June Juanico
June Juanico (born 19 November 1938) is an Elvis Presley fan from Biloxi, Mississippi, whom the famous rock 'n' roll singer dated in 1955 and 1956, for instance, when he took three weeks of vacation after having recorded his songs " Hound Dog" a ...
in July 1956. His marked-up copy still exists in Lebanon and another at the Elvis Presley museum in
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in th ...
. A line of poetry from ''Sand and Foam'' (1926), which reads "Half of what I say is meaningless, but I say it so that the other half may reach you," was used by
John Lennon
John Winston Ono Lennon (born John Winston Lennon; 9 October 19408 December 1980) was an English singer, songwriter, musician and peace activist who achieved worldwide fame as founder, co-songwriter, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of ...
and placed, though in a slightly altered form, into the song "
Julia
Julia is usually a feminine given name. It is a Latinate feminine form of the name Julio and Julius. (For further details on etymology, see the Wiktionary entry "Julius".) The given name ''Julia'' had been in use throughout Late Antiquity (e.g. ...
" from
the Beatles
The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatles, most influential band of al ...
' 1968 album ''
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatles, most influential band of al ...
'' (a.k.a. "The White Album").
Johnny Cash
John R. Cash (born J. R. Cash; February 26, 1932 – September 12, 2003) was an American country singer-songwriter. Much of Cash's music contained themes of sorrow, moral tribulation, and redemption, especially in the later stages of his ca ...
recorded ''The Eye of the Prophet'' as an audio cassette book, and Cash can be heard talking about Gibran's work on a track called "Book Review" on his 2003 album ''
Unearthed''. British singer
David Bowie
David Robert Jones (8 January 194710 January 2016), known professionally as David Bowie ( ), was an English singer-songwriter and actor. A leading figure in the music industry, he is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the ...
mentioned Gibran in the song "
The Width of a Circle" from Bowie's 1970 album ''
The Man Who Sold the World''. Bowie used Gibran as a "hip reference," because Gibran's work ''A Tear and a Smile'' became popular in the
hippie
A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around ...
counterculture of the 1960s. In 1978 Uruguayan musician Armando Tirelli recorded an album based on ''The Prophet''. In 2016 Gibran's fable "On Death" from ''The Prophet'' was composed in Hebrew by
Gilad Hochman
Gilad Hochman ( he, גילעד הוכמן; born 26 July 1982 in Herzliya) is an Israeli classical music composer.
Education
Hochman was born to an Odessa native father and a Paris native mother and currently resides in Berlin, Germany. He began ...
to the unique setting of soprano,
theorbo
The theorbo is a plucked string instrument of the lute family, with an extended neck and a second pegbox. Like a lute, a theorbo has a curved-back sound box (a hollow box) with a wooden top, typically with a sound hole, and a neck extending ou ...
and percussion, and it premiered in France under the title ''River of Silence''.
In 2018 and
Dana Al Fardan
Dana Al Fardan (born 29 July 1985), is a self-taught Qatari composer and songwriter. Born and raised in Doha, al Fardan is known for being the first female Qatari contemporary composer, singer and songwriter, for being Qatar’s first female to si ...
devoted their musical ''Broken Wings'' to Kahlil Gibran's novel of
the same name. The world premiere was staged in London's
Theatre Royal Haymarket
The Theatre Royal Haymarket (also known as Haymarket Theatre or the Little Theatre) is a West End theatre on Haymarket in the City of Westminster which dates back to 1720, making it the third-oldest London playhouse still in use. Samuel Foot ...
.
Memorials and honors
A number of places, monuments and educational institutions throughout the world are named in honor of Gibran, including the
Gibran Museum
The Gibran Museum, formerly the Monastery of Mar Sarkis, is a biographical museum in Bsharri, Lebanon, from Beirut. It is dedicated to the Lebanese writer, philosopher, and artist Kahlil Gibran.
The museum was an old cavern where many hermits ...
in Bsharri, the Gibran Memorial Plaque in
Copley Square
Copley Square , named for painter John Singleton Copley, is a public square in Boston's Back Bay neighborhood, bounded by Boylston Street, Clarendon Street, St. James Avenue, and Dartmouth Street. Prior to 1883 it was known as Art Square due to it ...
, Boston,
[.] the
Gibran Khalil Gibran Garden
The Gibran Khalil Gibran Garden ( ar, حديقة جبران خليل جبران) is a 6,000-square-meter public garden in the Centre Ville area of Beirut, Lebanon, facing the UN House, the headquarters of ESCWA, the United Nations Economic and ...
in Beirut,
[.] the
Kahlil Gibran Memorial Garden in Washington, D.C.,
the
Khalil Gibran International Academy
Khalil Gibran International Academy is a Public school (government funded), public school in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, New York City, New York (state), New York that opened in September 2007 with about 60 sixth grade students. As the first English-Ar ...
in Brooklyn, and the Khalil Gibran Elementary School in
Yonkers, NY
Yonkers () is a city in Westchester County, New York, United States. Developed along the Hudson River, it is the third most populous city in the state of New York (state), New York, after New York City and Buffalo, New York, Buffalo. The popul ...
.
A
crater
Crater may refer to:
Landforms
*Impact crater, a depression caused by two celestial bodies impacting each other, such as a meteorite hitting a planet
*Explosion crater, a hole formed in the ground produced by an explosion near or below the surfac ...
on Mercury was named in his honor in 2009.
Family
American sculptor
Kahlil G. Gibran (1922–2008) was a cousin of Gibran.
The Katter political family in Australia was also related to Gibran. He was described in parliament as a cousin of
Bob Katter Sr.
Robert Cummin Katter (born Cummin Robert Katter, 5 September 191818 March 1990) was an Australian politician who served in the House of Representatives from 1966 to 1990, representing the National Party (originally named the Country Party). H ...
, a long time member of the Australian parliament and one-time Minister for the Army, and through him his son
Bob Katter
Robert Bellarmine Carl Katter (born 22 May 1945) is an Australian politician who has been a member of the House of Representatives since 1993. He was previously active in Queensland state politics from 1974 to 1992. Katter was a member of the ...
, founder of
Katter's Australian Party
Katter's Australian Party (KAP) is an agrarian political party in Australia. It was founded by Bob Katter, an independent and former Nationals MP for the seat of Kennedy, with a registration application lodged to the Australian Electoral Co ...
and former Queensland state minister, and state politician
Robbie Katter
Robert Carl Ignatius Katter (born 3 March 1977) is an Australian politician. He serves as the member of the Legislative Assembly of Queensland for Traeger, having previously represented Mount Isa from 2012 to 2017. He is the leader of Katter's ...
.
Notes
References
Citations
Cited works
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Further reading
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External links
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Gibran Museum Bsharri, Lebanon
Online copies of texts by GibranKahlil Gibran: Profile and Poems on Poets.orgBBC World Service: "The Man Behind the Prophet"The Kahlil Gibran Collective website includin
a digital archive of his worksin ''The New York Times'' Archives
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gibran, Kahlil
1883 births
1931 deaths
20th-century American novelists
20th-century American painters
20th-century American poets
20th-century American short story writers
20th-century Lebanese painters
20th-century Lebanese poets
20th-century deaths from tuberculosis
20th-century painters from the Ottoman Empire
20th-century poets from the Ottoman Empire
Alcohol-related deaths in New York City
Académie Julian alumni
American Arabic-language poets
Cultural history of Boston
Deaths from cirrhosis
Exophonic writers
Lebanese novelists
Lebanese short story writers
Mahjar
Novelists from the Ottoman Empire
People from Bsharri
Symbolist painters
Symbolist poets
Tuberculosis deaths in New York (state)
Writers who illustrated their own writing