Poetry of Revolution: Romanticism and National Projects

Votre élève d’hier, aujourd’hui vous convie

A faire un bon accueil à ses Rires et Pleurs ;

A les prendre en pitié, quoique dans votre vie,

Les rires aient souvent fui devant les douleurs. (1-4)

Durand goes on to elaborate on Delorme’s fondness for French poetry and for Lamartine

especially, which he in turn imparted to all of his students. Only ten years apart in age, Durand

and Delorme would have shared a common literary heritage which emphasized nineteenth-

century French poets, many of whom Durand also quotes as epigraphs in the collection.

Delorme had written about his view of literature in his essay Les théoriciens au pouvoir, a text

which investigates in the form of dialogue the renowned intellectuals of Greece, Rome, and

France. In this work, Delorme states that literature provides a type of “second vision” into the

world’s beauty and is capable of guiding the development of civilization and transforming

societies. Citing Greece and France as his prime examples, Delorme then discusses the

primordial role of literature in establishing national greatness:

Elle [la littérature] gouverne ainsi à sa manière, et elle agit sur les peuples plus

effectivement que les gouvernements eux-mêmes [...] Ce sont les hommes de

lettres qui ont rendu la Grèce, dans le temps, la capitale et l’école de toutes les

nations; ce n’est pas sa politique, c’est sa littérature qui a mis la France à la tête

du monde. Sa grandeur et son influence sont le fait de la succession non

interrompue de ses penseurs, depuis Abélard jusqu’à ce jour.^188

The importance Delorme accords to literature represents a slight shift from prescriptions

outlined by Emile Nau in L’Union. Since so many historical texts had been authored by Haitians

in the preceding decades, Haitian intellectuals like Delorme refer less to the need to write history

than they do to develop literature. This does not mean that literature cannot reflect or even

reconstruct historical events, or that versions of history were not contested. However, that the

significance placed on literary texts is greater during this period. Given the political instability in

(^188) Demesvar Delorme, Les théoriciens au pouvoir (1870; Port-au-Prince: Editions Fardin, 1979) 202.