To enhance the appearance of new buildings, architects and decorators resorted to lines, geometrical designs and scenery.

As a young student in Lebanon, Gibran was not influenced by the art of one particular man or school of painters. Studying the work of the Arab philosophers, Gibran imagined their appearances and for the first time etched likenesses of these men appeared in books. Gibran created these at the age of seventeen. In the early days of his career as a painter, he exhibited his work in a studio in Boston. A fire destroyed the building and the entire collection of drawings and paintings. This was a great shock to a young man who needed to sell his work for a living. In later years he remarked that it was just as well that they were destroyed because he was not fully mature when he painted them. The paintings and drawings of Gibran are now scattered all over the Middle East, Europe and America.

Early in his career, Gibran wrote books, poetry and articles in Arabic. He created a new era in style, influenced by Western thought, and a revolution in the minds of the younger generation of his country. But all this did not give him a living income; therefore in his art he concentrated on portraits of famous or rich people. The illustrations for his books consisted basically of naked bodies, shadows drawn in gray and black. Their movements and the settings were a clear attempt to relate the known to the unknown, to depict love, sorrow, and life in their relation to man and God. He used no clothes, no trees, no buildings, no churches, and nothing to identify the scene with any section of the earth or any religious denomination. What is revealed is Gibran and his own connection with the handiwork of God. Gibran’s ancestors conceived of God as an ancient father with long beard and flowing clothes; this conception remained with the church which supported and financed the work of the great men of the Middle Ages. Gibran, not supported by the church, not affected by any specific style in his childhood, remained free to develop his own style.

Gibran left few poems because he learned how to write Arabic poetry before he knew how to write English. This has been the case of other Arabic writers in Gibran’s circumstances. According to the rules of Arabic poetry, what we call a poem in English is considered only a rhymed phrase. In other words, if we accept the Arabic rules as standard, the English language has no poetry.

Gibran wrote most of his Arabic poetry in the early years of his life. Arab poets prided themselves in using words that could be understood only after consulting the dictionary. Gibran’s Arabic poetry opened a new era and new horizons by using short and simple words.

In his later years, Gibran wrote for English readers. As we have said, according to Gibran’s education, writing poetry in English would be like taking the work of Shakespeare and rewriting it in ordinary language. Hence, we find very little poetry among the voluminous work of Gibran.

In what poetry he wrote, the philosophy was the same as in his prose. The following translation gives an example of this philosophy:

“During the ebb, I wrote a line upon the sand,

Committing to it all that is in my soul and mind;

I returned at the tide to read it and to ponder upon it,

I found naught upon the seashore but my ignorance.”

One of Gibran’s Arabic poems, The Procession, has been translated into English by two different writers. Comparing the two works we find great variation and we feel that something is missing. If I were to attempt a translation, I could probably do no better. There remains something inherently untranslatable in the basic use of words and language. One of the translators wrote: “By reason of the nebulous, untranslatable character of the Arabic language … it required occasional departure from strict translation in order that Gibran’s mighty message be captured intact.”

A commentator who knew Arabic has said: “Arabic is a forceful language with a prolific vocabulary of pregnant words of fine shadings. Its delicate tones of warmth and color form with its melodies a symphony, the sound of which moves its listeners to tears or ecstasy.”

Though we lose some of the forcefulness and melody, even a translation conveys the basic philosophy of Gibran, which reached its peak of expression in the later work, The Prophet.

The translator, G. Kheirallah, said of this work: “The poem represents the unconscious autobiography of Gibran: Gibran the sage, mellowed beyond his years, and Gibran the rebel, who had come to believe in the Unity and Universality of all existence and who longed for simple, impersonal freedom, merged in harmony with all things.”

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