For Wednesday: Gibran, The Prophet, from "Joy and Sorrow" to "Teaching"

I know your book has different page numbers than mine (or the one I tried to order for the class!), so try to read through the chapter on "Teaching." You can read a little more than this, or a little less, but get close to this, so you can finish for Friday's class. But again, it reads very quickly, and I often have to force myself to slow down because every sentence has a tricky meaning that can easily slip through your grasp if you read it too superficially! 

Answer TWO of the following:

Q1: Why might the section on "Self-Knowledge" almost be a paraphrase or a free translation of one or more verses of the Tao te Ching? In what way is it echoing many of the key sentiments of that work, suggesting that either Gibran knew it intiamately (or simply really agreed with its ideas)?

Q2: When I was teaching English as a Second Language way back in 2001, a student from Oman once told me, "the problem with Americans is that they have too much freedom. When you have too much freedom, you are no longer free." I kind of brushed him off at the time, but I think he was paraphrasing Gibran here, who says in the section on "Freedom": "I have seen the freest among you wear their freedom as a yoke and a handcuff." How can freedom be stifling and create its own fetters? What does he mean that "freedom is the strongest of these chains, though its links glitter in the sun and dazzle your eyes?"

Q3: In one of the most controversial passages of the book, the Prophet suggests that "The murdered is not unaccountable for his own murder. And the robbed is not blameless in being robbed." How can a victim be 'guilty' of the crime of their victimhood? Isn't this like blaming someone who gets raped for wearing the wrong clothing? Or is he striking at something deeper here? 

Q4: In a passage that echoes what he earlier said about love, the Prophet suggests that "joy is your sorrow unmasked...The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain." Why is sorrow necessary for joy? Why is pain necessary for pleasure? Ugliness for beauty? (and why might this start reminding you of the Tao?) :)