Spirit Brides is classic Gibran with stories that depict life in late nineteenth-century northern Lebanon and serve as Gibran's vehicle for discussing religious and ethical themes. This book is a collection of three short stories, in which Kahlil Gibran portrays his belief in the overwhelming power of love in human nature. In "The Ash of Centuries and the Immortal Flame," Gibran describes a love that unites souls beyond time and social restrictions. "Marta al-Baniyah" expresses Gibran's views on the exploitation of women and the poor. He then makes a cutting commentary on the contrast between the ecclesiastical hierarchy and the simplicity of the teachings of Jesus in his final story, "Yuhanna the Madman."Juan Cole's
Spirit Brides is classic Gibran with stories that depict life in late nineteenth-century northern Lebanon and serve as Gibran's vehicle for discussing religious and ethical themes. This book is a collection of three short stories, in which Kahlil Gibran portrays his belief in the overwhelming power of love in human nature. In "The Ash of Centuries and the Immortal Flame," Gibran describes a love that unites souls beyond time and social restrictions. "Marta al-Baniyah" expresses Gibran's views on the exploitation of women and the poor. He then makes a cutting commentary on the contrast between the ecclesiastical hierarchy and the simplicity of the teachings of Jesus in his final story, "Yuhanna the Madman."Juan Cole's stunning and lyric translation revives Gibran's passionate stories of spiritual transcendence through love and suffering.
These two collections, which inaugurate a five-volume series, are not likely to enjoy the popularity of Gibran's The Prophet (1923). Originally published in Arabic in the first decade of this century, these stories and prose poems are chiefly vehicles for the writer's vague spiritualism, nostalgic idealism, or gloomy condemnation of society. The narratives themselves are either entirely symbolic or mere frames for the messages (such as belief in the transmigration of souls, exposure of the wickedness of established religion, and censure of the oppression of the poor and weak). Since the translations are new, the self-conscious literariness of the high-flown style must be Gibran's own. Some wisdom can be gleaned from these tendentious pieces (a brief essay on slavery in The Storm is moving), but the combination of mysticism, melancholy, and mannerism here ranks no higher as philosophy than it does as literature.-- Patricia Dooley, Seattle
Product Details
ISBN-13: 9781935952183
Publisher: White Cloud Press
Publication date: 12/30/2010
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 78
File size: 706 KB
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Overview
Spirit Brides is classic Gibran with stories that depict life in late nineteenth-century northern Lebanon and serve as Gibran's vehicle for discussing religious and ethical themes. This book is a collection of three short stories, in which Kahlil Gibran portrays his belief in the overwhelming power of love in human nature. In "The Ash of Centuries and the Immortal Flame," Gibran describes a love that unites souls beyond time and social restrictions. "Marta al-Baniyah" expresses Gibran's views on the exploitation of women and the poor. He then makes a cutting commentary on the contrast between the ecclesiastical hierarchy and the simplicity of the teachings of Jesus in his final story, "Yuhanna the Madman."Juan Cole's