It is a prose poem. The 28 chapters of prose poems in "The Prophet" have an overall structure: it starts with "The Arrival of the Ship" and ends with "Loading Anchors and Setting Sail", with a series of chapters in between - "Love", "Marriage", and "Children" ... They are relatively independent, and they also switch from one theme to another naturally and clearly, forming an organic connection between them. It is said that Gibran greatly admired the "unity" in poetic structure of the 10th century Arab poet Al-Mutainabi. This "integrated" poetic structure not only enables the implementation of a series of his thoughts, but also achieves the consistency of his philosophical tone.
In "The Prophet", in addition to using a large number of traditional metaphors, Gibran also borrowed a lot from dream and symbolic techniques in Western poetry; in the alternate use of logical thinking and image thinking, he not only established a The fresh and lively artistic image also contains profound philosophy. A "prophet", a woman named Almecha, came out of the temple and actually acted as a "director"; while in Alfa Amestad, who has been waiting for twelve years in the city of Lys, is the real "protagonist" in "The Prophet". Amestafa was Gibran's "mouth" for telling the truth: through him Gibran gained a "legitimate" identity to speak. "Love" and other 26 aspects can be said to be the main body and essence of "Prophet". Amos Dafa's series of answers to those questions fully demonstrate the philosophical depth and superb artistic skills of Gibran's prose poetry.
Kahlil Gibran, who has gone through many vicissitudes of life, always writes from his heart, revealing desolation in his tranquility; he uses his rich imagination and emotions to paint his language with a strong subjective color. Because of this, he does not pay attention to the image reproduction of life, but tends to pour out his thoughts, feelings and understanding of life to readers. This can be understood from a sentence in his other book "Sand and Foam": "Poetry is not an expressed opinion, it is a song that pours out of a wound or a smile."
——Before making his thoughts public, Amestaf said at the end of "The Arrival of the Ship": "O people of Alfalris, except for what is now stirring in the souls of the supply and marketing cooperatives, What else can I say?"
He said in "Marriage": "You were born together, and you will be one forever/When the white wings of death separate your years. , ye shall be one. / Oh, ye shall be one even in solitude, when you think of God. / But in your unity, let the wind of heaven dance among you.” This seems to have the same effect as Goethe's "Is it the essence of life, / separated within itself? / Or do the two choose each other, / seen as one by others?" (middle sentence of "Two-lobed Ginkgo"). He said in "Children": "Your children are not your children, / but the children that life desires for itself." "You can give them love, but you cannot give them thoughts." In the poem Full of respect, tolerance and tolerance. Another example is, "To love life at work is to understand the deepest secret of life" ("Work") "Before you build a house in the city, first use your imagination to build a pavilion in the wild." ("Work") "Room")
The charm of Gibran's prose poetry lies in his almost divine philosophy. Philosophy did not harm his poetry. Because of his philosophy, his poetry was able to transcend spiritually and artistically. Especially the setting of the situation made us feel tragic in advance. At the end of "The Prophet", we see: the ship pulled anchor and set sail, Amestaf abandoned the shore and boarded the ship, sailing eastward, the crowd dispersed, and Hermes still stood alone on the shore, in her In my heart, I remembered what Amestaf said: "After a while, I rested in the wind for a while, and another woman would be pregnant with me again.
”