The Prophet - Kahlil Gibran Page 0,4
Lebanon: A Study of Kahlil Gibran, New York, Alfred Knopf, 1945.
7. Mary Haskell to Kahlil Gibran (Hilu, op. cit.).
8. Mikhail Naimy, Kahlil Gibran: His Life and his Work, Khayats, Beirut, 1964.
9. Barbara Young, This Man from Lebanon: A Study of Kahlil Gibran, New York, Alfred Knopf, 1945.
10. Kahlil Gibran to Mary Haskell (Hilu, op. cit.).
11. Mikhail Naimy, op. cit.
12. See Hilu, op. cit.
13. See Bushrui and al Kusbari, op. cit.
14. Kahlil Gibran to Mary Haskell (Hilu, op. cit.). For a full discussion of the influence of Blake on all aspects of Gibran’s oeuvre, see Suheil Bushrui, Kahlil Gibran of Lebanon: A re-evaluation of the life and works of the author of The Prophet, op. cit.
15. For all references to Blake’s poems see The Works of William Blake, Wordsworth Editions Ltd, London, 1994.
16. Mary Haskell to Kahlil Gibran (Hilu, op. cit.).
17. Mikhail Naimy, op. cit.
18. Ibid.
19. Originally written as ‘Khalil’, the spelling of the author’s name was altered to a more obviously phonetic one when he attended school in Boston, America. Barbara Young, op. cit., claims that the young Gibran altered the spelling himself when still in Lebanon because he found the name more beautiful written thus. It is interesting to note that the name ‘Almustafa’ also means ‘chosen’, and was one of the many appellations of the prophet Mohammed.
Biographical Note
Gibran Khalil Gibran was born on 6 December 1883 in the town of Bisharri at the foot of Cedar Mountain in North Lebanon. His father, a tax collector, was also a drinker and gambler, but he came from a scholarly line of intellectuals and Maronite churchmen on his mother’s side. Kahlil had no formal education, but learned English, French and Arabic simultaneously, and showed early promise as an artist, developing a passion for Leonardo da Vinci by the age of six. When he was eleven all his family except his father emigrated to America and settled among a community of expatriate Lebanese in Boston’s Chinatown. His mother worked as a seamstress and his older brother, Boutros, opened a grocery store. Gibran attended school where the spelling of his name was changed to Kahlil. He was sent to drawing classes and was soon introduced to the photographer Fred Holland Day, who used him as a model, and commissioned designs from him.
In 1898, Gibran was sent home to attend the Al Hikma school in Beirut. He studied French Romantic and Arabic literature. In 1902 he returned to his family via Paris. His sister Sultana died of tuberculosis before his arrival, to be followed shortly after by his brother, Boutros. Within another few weeks, his mother died of cancer, leaving him with just his youngest sister, Mariama. Gibran sold the grocery store and earned his living as a painter.
Gibran had an affair with journalist Josephine Peabody, who introduced him to Mary Haskell, a teacher who became his sponsor and collaborator. His career as a painter was established when he began to write for the Arab émigré newspaper, Al Mohajer. In 1905 his first book, Al-Musiqah, was published. More articles and books followed, mostly criticising state and church, and in 1908 his book of prose poems, Al-Arwah al Mutamarridah, was banned by the Syrian Government, and he was excommunicated from the Syrian Church. Mary Haskell then financed a two-year stay in Paris, where Gibran studied painting at the Ecole des Beaux Arts and the Académie Julien. He exhibited there in 1910.
Back in America, after Mary Haskell declined his offer of marriage, he moved to New York and worked as a portrait painter. He exhibited regularly, and a book of his drawings was published. In 1912 the publication of his novel Broken Wings brought him into a life-long correspondence with May Ziadah, a young Lebanese woman living in Cairo. Mary Haskell encouraged him to write in English and in 1915 a poem, The Perfect World, appeared, followed by his first English book, The Madman, in 1918. During these years he continued to write in Arabic and continued