William Blake And Kahlil Gibran

William Blake and Kahlil Gibran, Poets of Prophetic Vision is a book of literary criticism in English. This book is a comparative study of two major Romantic poets and is unique in its scope and content. Its uniqueness and relevance stem from the fact that it remains the only comprehensive comparative study done on Blake and Gibran. While some remarks about Blake's influence on Gibran can be found scattered in books on the Lebanese-American poet, no other serious attempt has been made to bring the two major authors together in a thorough comparison with a detailed analysis of their works. In addition to asserting Blake's supreme influence on Gibran, this book also explicitly addresses the influence of the Bible on the writings, artwork and lives of both Blake and Gibran. It highlights the effect of Anglo-American Romanticism and the Transcendentalist Movement on the Lebanese poet and traces the temporary, yet powerful, impact of Nietzsche on Gibran. The book also attempts to explore the importance of prophetic vision, to address prophecy, to define the function of imagination in relation to nature, and to establish the role of the poet as the supreme visionary and prophet. There is evidence that Gibran knew some of Blake's poetry and was familiar with his drawings during his early years in Boston. However, this knowledge of Blake was neither deep nor complete. Kahlil Gibran was reintroduced to William Blake's poetry and art in Paris, most likely in Auguste Rodin's studio and by Rodin himself. It was then that Gibran read Blake's complete works and his biography and carefully studied many reproductions of Blake's drawings. From that time on, Blake played a special role in Gibran's life. In Paris, Gibran was called "the twentieth-century Blake." Blake's and Gibran's reading of the Bible, their rebellion against Church corruption, and their sociopolitical visions were very similar. Both men rejected reason in favor of imagination and shared the muse of art and poetry equally. This is not to say that Gibran was a mere copy of Blake, but to affirm that in Blake he found the support and confirmation for his own early doctrines that he developed before or during reading Blake. The book also highlights and analyses the two differences in the authors' convictions: their respective concepts of Nature and their views of Reincarnation. The book is divided into five chapters and it places Gibran in his proper historical context as it attempts to draw contrasts and comparisons with all major Anglo-American romantic and transcendentalist writers. It concludes with presenting both Gibran and Blake as poets of the Bible and tries to clarify the controversy regarding Gibran's response to Nietzsche's "Thus Spoke Zarathustra." Gibran respected Nietzsche and learned from him how to present his ideas in a messianic overtone. However, Gibran disagreed with the German philosopher and fully accepted Blake's concept of Christ. Christ remained Blake's and Gibran's idol and hero, the role model after whom they fashioned their lives.

Life-affirming parables and poems by the author of The Prophet cast an ironic light on the beliefs, aspirations and vanities of humanity. Also features 3 illustrations by author.

"You are your own forerunner, and the towers you have builded are but the foundation of your own giant-self. And that self too shall be a foundation." "And I too am my own forerunner, for the long shadow stretching before me at sunrise shall gather under my feet at the noon hour. Yet another sunrise shall lay another shadow before me, and that also shall be gathered at another noon." "Always have we been our own forerunners, and always shall we be. And all that we have gathered and shall gather shall be but seeds for fields yet unploughed. We are the fields and the ploughmen, the gatherers an the gathered."

A book of aphorisms, poems, and parables by the author of "The Prophet" - a philosopher at his window commenting on the scene passing below.

"My all-time favorite collection of poems . . . [Gibran's] poetry always roots me in my humanity." --Rupi Kaur, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Milk and Honey, The Sun and Her Flowers, and Home Body A stunning new hardcover edition--with a full linen case, copper stamping, turquoise gilded edges, and colored endpapers--of one of the world's most beloved and popular spiritual classics, featuring a new foreword by Rupi Kaur A Penguin Classics Hardcover The most famous work of spiritual fiction of the twentieth century, The Prophet is rooted in Kahlil Gibran's own experience as an immigrant and provides inspiration to anyone feeling adrift in a world in flux. As a prophet named Almustafa is about to board a ship to travel back to his homeland after twelve years in exile, he is stopped by a group of people who ask him to share his wisdom before he leaves. In twenty-eight poetic essays, he does so, offering profound and timeless insights on many aspects of life, including love, pain, friendship, family, beauty, religion, joy, sorrow, and death. An immediate success when first published in 1923, The Prophet is a modern classic, having been translated into more than forty languages and sold more than ten million copies in the United States alone. The message it imparts, of finding divinity through love, made it the bible of 1960s culture and continues to touch hearts and minds across generations and national borders. This edition is illustrated with twelve of Gibran's famous visionary paintings and features a foreword by Rupi Kaur. In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed. For more than seventy-five years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 2,000 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

The Prophet is a book of 26 prose poetry fables written in English by the Lebanese-American artist, philosopher and writer Kahlil Gibran.