Khalil Gibran Biography

Kahlil Gibran was a Lebanese painter, poet, writer, and philosopher, popularly known as Khalil Gibran. He was destined to spend most of his life away from his beloved motherland, having been born in an isolated village on Mount Lebanon called Mutasarrifate. His mother moved them to the United States when he was twelve years old, where he began his official education. He was soon recognized by Fred Holland Day, an avant-garde artist and photographer, and began to blossom under his guidance. However, when his mother saw he was being too influenced by western culture, she sent him back to Beirut to learn about his origins. When he returned to the United States, he started painting and, at the age of twenty-one, had his first exhibition. He began writing after that, first in Arabic and then in English. His poems blended elements of both cultures, giving him great popularity. 

Despite the fact that he is better known as a novelist than an artist, he has painted over 700 pictures. Despite spending the majority of his life in the United States, he was a Lebanese citizen who cared deeply about the well-being of his nation. Let’s see who is Khalil Gibran, Kahlil Gibran books, and his biography in this article.

Early Life of Kahlil Gibran

Khalil Gibran, one of the middle eastern poets was born on January 6, 1883, to a family of Maronite Christian in Bsharri, Lebanon. He was a quiet, sensitive little child who showed early artistic talent and a passion for nature in his subsequent works. Although he took informal lessons from a local doctor, his early schooling was irregular. Gibran's temperamental dad worked as a tax collector before being charged with theft and having his possessions taken. Gibran's mother brought the family to Boston, Massachusetts, in 1895, in search of a better life. They lived in the immigrant South End neighbourhood.

Education

Gibran went to the United States with his family as a kid, where he studied art and began his literary career, writing in both English and Arabic. Gibran is considered a literary and political renegade in the Arab world. His romantic approach, which broke away from the classical school, was at the core of rebirth in modern Arabic literature, notably prose poetry. Gibran received no formal education while growing up in Lebanon. Priests, on the other hand, came to see him on a daily basis and educated him about the Bible and the Arabic language. Gibran began his education on September 30, 1895. He was placed in a special class for immigrants learning English, according to school officials. Gibran also enrolled in a nearby settlement house's art school, Denison House. Gibran was introduced to avant-garde Boston artist, photographer, and publisher Fred Holland Day through his teachers there, who encouraged and supported him in his creative endeavours. In 1898, a publisher used some of Gibran's drawings as book covers. Gibran returned to Lebanon at the age of fifteen to study at al-Hikma, a Maronite-run preparatory school and higher-education institute in Beirut. Gibran went to Paris to study art for two years in 1908.

Artistic Development

The 13-year-old stood out with his artistic talent during his first official schooling, where he was registered under his now-famous name of Kahlil Gibran. Gibran was introduced to photographer and publisher Fred Holland Day, who cultivated his talents and introduced him to a larger art world. Gibran returned to Lebanon at the age of 15 to attend a Maronite school in Beirut, where he developed a passion for poetry and started a student magazine. He returned to Boston in 1901, just after one of his sisters died of tuberculosis, and his brother and mother died the following year.

Gibran continued to concentrate on his paintings while being financially supported by his surviving sister, a seamstress. He had a painting exhibition at Day's studio in 1904, and he began writing a weekly column for the Arabic journal al-Mohajer. Gibran's "prose poems," which were more approachable than conventional Arabic compositions and explored subjects of loneliness and a lack of connection to nature, gained a following. In 1905, he released a pamphlet about his passion for music, followed by two collections of short stories. Meanwhile, Gibran developed a friendship with Mary Haskell, a progressive school principal who became Gibran's sponsor and writing collaborator.

Career 

Khalil Gibran, an Arabic poet and artist, was a huge fan of Francis Marrash, whose works he had studied at Beirut's al-Hikma school. Gibran's essays on Christianity, particularly on the subject of spiritual love, are many. His mysticism is a blend of inspirations from Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and theosophy. The Prophet (1923) was one of the most popular books in the United States throughout the twentieth century. The release of Nubthah Fi Fan al Musiqa, Gibran's first Arabic written work, was in 1905.  Gibran's second Arabic novel, The Nymphs of the Valley, a compilation of three metaphors set in Northern Lebanon, was released in 1906.

Portraits of his friends WB Yeats, Carl Jung, and Auguste Rodin are among his more than 700 paintings. A possible Gibran artwork was the subject of a PBS TV show called History Detectives in September 2008. The love between Mary and Gibran weakened as quarrels over money and marriage led to an unusual development. Mary became Gibran's instructor and editor soon after, launching a tutorial course aimed at strengthening his English writing while also broadening his cultural horizons.

Gibran attempted to translate his works for Mary to read and edit, but frustrated by the difficulties of translation and the language barrier that prevented Mary from assisting him in improving his writings, Mary advised Gibran to abandon his Arabic works and focus instead on writing directly in English.

Vision was his debut publication, a love essay depicting a caged bird amid a plethora of symbols. His Arabic writing has a conversational tone to it, making it approachable to his audience. Rules of language, according to Gibran, were supposed to be broken, and he went on to encourage Arab writers to break free from convention and find their own voice.

The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran & His Arts

The Prophet has never been out of print since it was first published in 1923. The timeless classic has been translated into more than 50 languages and is a perennial best-seller worldwide. It is estimated that tens of millions of copies have been sold. Despite the fact that the book was mostly neglected by the Western literary establishment, phrases from it have inspired song lyrics, political speeches, and have been read at weddings and funerals all across the world. The book consists of 26 prose poetry presented as sermons by Al Mustapha, a wise man. After 12 years in exile on a fictional island, he is about to leave the ship for his homeland when the islanders urge him to impart his wisdom on life's fundamental questions: love, family, work, and death. Its popularity peaked in the 1930s and then surged again in the 1960s when it became the counterculture's bible. The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran has poems about love, children, marriage, giving, eating and drinking, joy and sorrow,  work, housing, clothes, crime and punishment, buying and selling, laws, freedom, pain, self-knowledge, teaching, reason and passion, friendship, talking, good and evil, prayer, time, pleasure, religion, beauty, and death.

By training, Gibran was a painter as well as a writer, and in 1908, he was educated in the symbolist style in Paris. He interacted with the intellectual elite of his time, meeting and painting people such as WB Yeats, Carl Jung, and Auguste Rodin. Symbolists like Rodin and the English poet and artist William Blake, who influenced Gibran greatly, preferred romance to reality, and it was a trend that began in the 1920s, just as modernists like TS Eliot and Ezra Pound were gaining prominence. He created almost 700 paintings, watercolours, and drawings, but most of them were taken back to Lebanon after his death, thus they have gone unnoticed in the West.

Death

Gibran's health began to deteriorate in 1928, and the discomfort in his body grew as a result of his nervous state, prompting Gibran to seek assistance in alcohol. Gibran died on April 10, 1931, in New York City, at the age of 48. Cirrhosis of the liver and TB were the causes. Gibran stated that he wanted to be buried in Lebanon. The Mar Sarkis Monastery in Lebanon, which has now become the Gibran Museum, was purchased by Mary Haskell and his sister Mariana in 1932. His will left substantial sums of money to his country. Mary, Mariana, and Henrietta all went to Gibran's workshop to help him organise his works and sort through his books, illustrations, and drawings. Marianna and Mary travelled to Lebanon in July 1931 to bury Gibran in his village of Bsharri, fulfilling Gibran's ambition. The residents of Lebanon welcomed his coffin with joy rather than sadness, rejoicing in the return of "their prophet."

Khalil Gibran was a Lebanese-American artist, poet, and New York Penn League writer. He is the world's third best-selling poet, trailing only Shakespeare and Laozi. His romantic approach was at the core of a modern Arabic literature renaissance, primarily in prose poetry, which broke away from the classical school. He is still recognized as a literary hero in Lebanon. Gibran was born and raised in a Christian Maronite family and studied in Maronite schools. In 1895, he and his mother and siblings moved to Boston, but his father remained in Lebanon to deal with financial problems. His first book, Vision, was a love essay featuring a caged bird among a plethora of symbols. In 1904, Gibran began writing for the Arabic-language periodical The Emigrant, which became his first published work.