Review of Kahlil Gibran’s “Knowledge and Half-knowledge”

Kahlil Gibran is one of the most widely acclaimed poets of all time, and he wrote a lot of works in his career. While leafing through a collection of his greatest works, one short, simple, but rather mindblowing poem stood out to me, and that was “Knowledge and Half-knowledge”. I read it and it was a bit droll and short, but I thought that it exemplified spirituality in a way that I haven’t really seen in other poems or moral stories like Aesop’s Fables or the Panchatantra. 

While I glorified the poem a lot, the story is relatively simple. In my own words, “There were four frogs sitting on a log in a river. Suddenly, the river’s current swept the log downstream. The frogs were very excited because they had never experienced this before. Then, the first frog said, ‘This is a wondrous log, for it moves like an animal. Such a thing has never been seen!’ The second frog countered, ‘No, my friend, this is a normal log. It is just the river that is moving.’ However, the third frog said, ‘Neither the river nor the log are moving. The movement is just in our thoughts.’ The three frogs squabbled for a while before turning to the last frog, who had kept silent for the whole time. The last frog said, ‘It is all three. Both the log and the river are moving, and it is all in our thoughts.’ Not willing to accept that they were not completely right and that the others were right, all three ganged up on the fourth frog and pushed him off the log into the river.”

Now, the reason this is so important is that I think (even if they are frogs) that the characters exemplify human nature, especially in accord with religion and spirituality. As someone who lives in a very religious place, I see first-hand how religious conflicts and intolerance occurs. Gibran’s poem, while not making reference to a religion, shows us this; and it’s not just limited to religion. Whatever idea or belief that we place importance in is going to be fought over by fanatics. If we can replace the movement’s origin with religious ideas, suddenly the story becomes very familiar to us. How many wars and schisms have there been thanks to a disagreement about the nature of the universe and indeed, God? 

This poem shows us the irony and obstinacy embedded in human nature, to which almost everyone is susceptible to at one point in their lives. Like the three frogs, we also have a tendency to assume that we are right and others are wrong, and never that there can be many different ways of looking at something. When we are presented with this point, even enemies will come together to denounce the offending speaker. 

In conclusion, Kahlil Gibran’s poem “Knowledge and Half-knowledge” provides a startlingly deep look into human nature, while providing for a fun read and a lesson that is easily understood by everyone. “Knowledge and Half-knowledge” is merely one of Gibran’s works, of which there are plenty, and in it he describes a lot of painful truths disguised as comedic fables. I believe that with the problems that are happening in our societies today, we should refer to the ideas of eminent philosopher-poets like Kahlil Gibran. These people wrote social commentaries on problems, which, frankly, haven’t ceased even after their times, and continue to plague us today. All in all, though, this poem was both a fun read and an enlightening experience for me.