Abstract
This study is delimited to Gibran’s most popular book The Prophet (1923). The overall purpose of the study is to make visible aspects of Gibran’s book that contribute to its appeal and enduring popularity. To that end, it explores the poetic nature of the text through the use of metaphors. The findings of the study will, to an extent, be of literary interest to those who wish to study how a non-native speaker of English has managed to appeal to his addressees and pass his message and beliefs on to different societies and cultures. The study may be valuable to researchers and scholars interested in the study of the art of Arab immigrants who have succeeded in producing innovative and unconventional forms of literature. Statistical data analysis has revealed that the total number of metaphorical expressions in the whole text of amounts to 693 metaphors .Given that the total number of verse-lines in the text is (831), this means that the rate of metaphorical expressions in the entire text volume stands at (83.4%). This is an extremely high density percentage of figurative speech in one text. The study also reveals the fact that the rate of conventional metaphors in the data is at a minimal (7.07%), against the overwhelming majority of 92.93% of unconventional ones. This means that (644) new metaphors provide the addressees with new meanings to comprehend common human experiences.
نداء حسين فهمي الخزرجي | Asst. Prof. Dr. Nidaa Hussain Fahmi Al Khazraji | 4606