The Prophet, a book of 26 poetic essays, has been translated into over 20 languages, has had 45 editions in America alone, and is Kahlil Gibran’s best-known work. In spite of its popular success, the book has received little critical attention.

The prophet of the title, Almustafa, is preparing to sail home from a 12-year sojourn in foreign countries. He is approached by the Orphalese, the people of the area from which he is sailing, with questions about the mysteries of life. The Orphalese are abstractions (ploughman, rich man, woman, merchant, etc.) who request that Almustafa speak to them about subjects such as work, religion, and joy.

Almustafa’s sermons are delivered through a series of aphorisms, parables, and observations revealing the prophet’s philosophy. Almustafa—and, it is presumed, Gibran since there are a number of similarities—believes that the individual is a spiritual entity exiled to the material world. Unable to find peace in this existence, we are continually dragged down by the body and long to be free from the burden. Searching for fame and fortune is futile and destructive to the soul, yet work is essential to a meaningful life.

And in keeping yourself with labour you are in
truth loving life,
And to love life through labour is to be intimate
with life’s inmost secret. (Ch. 7)

Glimpses of the divine are perceived in acts of love and pity, yet to understand the good, one must know the evil; to appreciate the beautiful, be conscious of the ugly; to feel peace, experience turmoil.

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being,
the more joy you can contain. (Ch. 8)

A diverse range of readers regards the paradoxes and proverbs that fill the pages as spiritual truths that speak directly to them. While multitudes have read The Prophet with delight in the beauty of its language and its mystical view of life, literary critics have more often denigrated the work as transparent, trite, naive, or vague, with little literary significance. In the end, the reader must decide the work’s merits.

Bibliography
Gibran, Kahlil. The Prophet. New York: Knopf, 1923.