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Kahlil Gibran: Did craft lead to mystery or mystery lead to craft?
P. S. Remesh Chandran
Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum
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Mary Haskell edited and corrected many works of Gibran during the years from 1914 to 1923 during which period came out The Madman, The Forerunner, and The Prophet. Had she been not there as his friend, consultant, benefactor, financier and editor, there would have been none of these works and Gibran’s many works would still have carried many spelling mistakes, unnecessary and out-of-place punctuation marks, many Buts and Ands and Spaces, and some uncouth expressions. In short, there would have been no English Gibran but only an Arabic Gibran. It was publication of The Prophet in 1923 which made him very famous and successful in the American literary world. He would have written a second and a third part of The Prophet, but by then she had parted company.
Article Title Image 5 By Art Tower. Graphics: Adobe SP.
More English articles by the author at:
http://sahyadribooks-remesh.blogspot.com/
Malayalam articles by the author at:
http://sahyadrimalayalam.blogspot.in/
More political article by the author here:
http://sahyadribooks-remesh.blogspot.com/p/list-of-political-articles.html
About the Author P. S. Remesh Chandran:
Face Book: https://www.facebook.com/psremeshchandra.trivandrum
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PSRemeshChandra
You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/user/bloombooks/videos
Blog: http://sahyadribooks-remesh.blogspot.com/
Site: https://sites.google.com/site/timeuponmywindowsill/
E-Mail: bloombookstvm@gmail.com
Post: P. S. Remesh Chandran, Editor, Sahyadri Books, Trivandrum, Padmalayam, Nanniyode, Pacha Post, Trivandrum- 695562, Kerala State, South India.
Tags:
Kahlil Gibran, US Arabic Lebanese Poets, Free Blank Verse, Prose Poems, Dialectical Meta Physicist, Mary Haskell, The Prophet, Jesus Son Of Man, Poetical Imagery, Music In Poetry, Fate Destiny, // Mystical Destiny, Magical Poets, Grief And Sorrow, Poverty And Desolation, Dialectical Sensations, God Arabic Gibran, English Poetry, Recasting Poems,
First published:
Kahlil Gibran: Did craft lead to mystery or mystery lead to craft?
P. S. Remesh Chandran
Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum
Kahlil Gibran was a U.S- Arabic- Lebanese poet who thrilled the world with exotic tunes and captivating ideas which were once generic and common to Persian and Arab poets. This wonder that was Gibran brought excellent unheard of and unthought-of before ideas and imagery to the pages of English poetry. His poems have been a source of unending inspiration to poets and poetry-loving public. He is widely accepted as a writer of what is called free verse, blank verse or prose-poems. Considering the sweetness and mellowness of his lines, it is improbable that his mind had not been impregnated with heavenly music when writing these lines. Comparable only to such musically inspired and brilliant poets like Gulchin, Sana'i, Rumi, Nizami, Jami, Hafiz, Amir Khusrau, Firdausi and of course Omar Khayyam in the Persian language, it is only natural to assume that there are hilarious tunes concealed behind his songs and poems. In almost all his poems can be found slight references to brilliant geniuses let totally ignored, neglected and condemned by the dull wits, half wits and the jealous of their times. Naturally, such geniuses would want to hide or mask their fine things from their eyes. Thus, we come to guess that Kahlil Gibran hid his exquisite tunes behind a mask of blank verse such that the dull wits and half wits of his times won't attempt to sing them. Sure, he must have expected a tolerant and more understanding future generation come to unmask this blank verse carpeting and unveil the heart-stealing tunes behind them.
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It has since then been a challenge to music and poetry enjoyers all over the world to rediscover the tunes hid by Gibran in his songs. A dialectical meta physicist himself, some uncanny and mystical destiny surrounded and enveloped his poems and made them immune to the operations of people, especially unripe people. Whoever went after Gibran to find out this hidden music in his poems underwent the same isolation, misery, poverty, neglect and suppression depicted in his poems. It was like the roof collapsing when Shakespeare’s tragedy was acted on stage. It was a perfect repellent to keep experimenters away from his poems.
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Certainly there must have been people in the past who were as obstinate in unmasking his verse as Gibran was in masking his verse. That was why those tunes and versifications which were discovered earlier never came out to the printer's press. The strike of fate on those unfortunates who attempted to recast or even modify his poems earlier must have been such forceful and complete that they never could have risen again in their lives. Recasting Gibran poems to bring out the rich musical content in them is easy, but surviving and surpassing the fatal strikes extended from the mystic halo surrounding many of his poems is not easy at all. No one escapes unscathed when they are dealing with Gibran poems. This author also did not escape unscathed. Someday I will write about my horrible experiences. And I hope someday the results of those other’s attempts too would come to daylight and get published. Most of those others’ works must be lying somewhere in vaults, basement coal storage rooms and lofts long neglected where not a human being have entered for decades. Or most of them may have been burned or torn and blown to the wind to future generations in desperation like the poet himself wrote he did. When Gibran in one of his poems wrote about manuscript pages of the dying poet blown away to future generations by the wind, no one thought it to be a key to the unlocking of the mysticism surrounding the real life of this magical poet and his poems. Why this mysticism surrounds his poems?
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Certainly there must have been people in the past who were as obstinate in unmasking his verse as Gibran was in masking his verse. That was why those tunes and versifications which were discovered earlier never came out to the printer's press. The strike of fate on those unfortunates who attempted to recast or even modify his poems earlier must have been such forceful and complete that they never could have risen again in their lives. Recasting Gibran poems to bring out the rich musical content in them is easy, but surviving and surpassing the fatal strikes extended from the mystic halo surrounding many of his poems is not easy at all. No one escapes unscathed when they are dealing with Gibran poems. This author also did not escape unscathed. Someday I will write about my horrible experiences. And I hope someday the results of those other’s attempts too would come to daylight and get published. Most of those others’ works must be lying somewhere in vaults, basement coal storage rooms and lofts long neglected where not a human being have entered for decades. Or most of them may have been burned or torn and blown to the wind to future generations in desperation like the poet himself wrote he did. When Gibran in one of his poems wrote about manuscript pages of the dying poet blown away to future generations by the wind, no one thought it to be a key to the unlocking of the mysticism surrounding the real life of this magical poet and his poems. Why this mysticism surrounds his poems?
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Intermittent experiences of grief and sorrow and brief respites of joy and happiness are what nature intended for man. Mystic poets see through these unsavory experiences in advance and lay them down in their poems for man to walk over them and sting his feet. Once stung, he wakes up. Because it is happening not in real life but in a poem or in a book that he comes across his future, he is not crushed or disheartened much beyond recovery. It is his luck. Had it been in real life, happened all of a sudden, he would have lost his soul and lost his way. Because it was only in a book, he benefits from the experience. He becomes wise and learns to modify things when they come his way in real life. Because all experience of a man is a repetition of the experience of the world in general and mankind in particular, the seers and mystics among them can see through the experiences of a man and chart his course of life in advance. Why and how it is because even while having crushing blows in life like others, they are not moved and their minds are not clouded but clear. That is why they are seers and mystics. The ordinary man too could have seen what his crushing experience denotes in his future but he is carried away by the experience and cannot keep his mind unclouded and clear to see into the future. His turbulent mind becomes incapable of navigating through the world anymore and he decides to quit or goes unbalanced. So, Gibran was not reflecting his own mind, but portraying the dialectical sensations and feelings passing through the world's mind, recording them for posterity like a historian. So he filled his poems with grief, sorrow, poverty and desolation that whoever goes through them goes through them first in his mind and then in his life unless he is wise and leaves the book immediately and decides never to go to it again.
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Gibran made his mysticism combining his theories on man and god and fate and destiny, something which once the Persians and the Arabs did exquisitely, exhilaratingly, in the literary world. Gibran brought these tender sensations to English poetry pages. ‘God knew that man would die someday which man alone did not know until he ate the fruit, lost his innocence and divined the ultimate knowledge of life and death. The instant he ate the fruit, the first dead leaf fell in the garden. God did see in advance his creation going after gratification of his desire and after a brief span of life, lying somewhere dead and still. That was why he laughed and cried at the same time, feeling overwhelming joy and pity for this doomed fragile creation, and decided to stay with him and to protect him under his guidance like a child who will never grow.’ (I am quoting from one of my own books).
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Gibran was in full admiration of Nietzsche but disagreed with Nietzsche’s portrayal of Jesus as a very weak person. Gibran viewed Jesus as a commendable worldly human being. His longest work in English being Jesus, the Son of Man was not coincidental.
Mary Haskell edited and corrected many works of Gibran during the years from 1914 to 1923 during which period came out The Madman, The Forerunner, and The Prophet. Had she been not there as his friend, consultant, benefactor, financier and editor, there would have been none of these works and Gibran’s many works would still have carried many spelling mistakes, unnecessary and out-of-place punctuation marks, many Buts and Ands and Spaces, and some uncouth expressions. In short, there would have been no English Gibran but only an Arabic Gibran. It was publication of The Prophet in 1923 which made him very famous and successful in the American literary world. He would have written a second and a third part of The Prophet, but by then she had parted company.
More English articles by the author at:
http://sahyadribooks-remesh.blogspot.com/
Malayalam articles by the author at:
http://sahyadrimalayalam.blogspot.in/
More political article by the author here:
http://sahyadribooks-remesh.blogspot.com/p/list-of-political-articles.html
About the Author P. S. Remesh Chandran:
Editor of Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum. Author of several books in English and in Malayalam. And also author of Swan: The Intelligent Picture Book. Born and brought up in the beautiful village of Nanniyode in the Sahya Mountain Valley in Trivandrum, in Kerala. Father British Council trained English teacher and Mother University educated. Matriculation with distinction and Pre Degree Studies in Science with National Merit Scholarship. Discontinued Diploma studies in Electronics and entered politics. Unmarried and single.
Face Book: https://www.facebook.com/psremeshchandra.trivandrum
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PSRemeshChandra
You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/user/bloombooks/videos
Blog: http://sahyadribooks-remesh.blogspot.com/
Site: https://sites.google.com/site/timeuponmywindowsill/
E-Mail: bloombookstvm@gmail.com
Post: P. S. Remesh Chandran, Editor, Sahyadri Books, Trivandrum, Padmalayam, Nanniyode, Pacha Post, Trivandrum- 695562, Kerala State, South India.
Tags:
Kahlil Gibran, US Arabic Lebanese Poets, Free Blank Verse, Prose Poems, Dialectical Meta Physicist, Mary Haskell, The Prophet, Jesus Son Of Man, Poetical Imagery, Music In Poetry, Fate Destiny, // Mystical Destiny, Magical Poets, Grief And Sorrow, Poverty And Desolation, Dialectical Sensations, God Arabic Gibran, English Poetry, Recasting Poems,
First published:
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