Haiti compared to the relative calm during Boyer’s rule, it is no wonder that Haitian thinkers
look more to literature for national identity and legitimacy and less to the political workings of
the nation-state. In this way, the importance of literature is both a response to now having
written histories and a reaction to current political crises.
Delorme’s comments about literature also help to contextualize what French texts inparticular may have represented for Haitian writers in the second half of the nineteenth century.
An admiration for French literature stems not only from an appreciation for specific works or
poets but also for the continuity of expression which over time has resulted in a national canon.
France has no monopoly on literary greatness, since Greece preceded France in this achievement
at an earlier time in history. As stated in L’Union, however, it is because of a shared language
that Haitian writers had access to French literature as a recent example of an established literary
tradition. Without specifically saying so, Delorme seems to indicate that there are universal
qualities in literature of all times and places. In light of this observation, it is useful to bring in
Jean Paulhan’s 1941 essay Les Fleurs de Tarbes. Paulhan explores how writers have
traditionally used accepted topoi whose established association with literature makes them
appropriate and even necessary for new poetic endeavors.^189 Paulhan writes against
condemning a priori the use of certain rhetorical conventions which since the advent of
Romanticism have been reproved by literary critics. The similarity between topics in Durand’s
collection and other recurring themes in French poetry reveals a means through which Durand
can frame his own project. Paulhan’s text can also help to explain why, for example, a poet
might use such clichéd terms to describe a sunset. Durand’s “Sonnet-Préface.” opens with this
quatrain:
(^189) Jean Paulhan, Les fleurs de Tarbes; ou, La terreur dans les lettres (Paris: Gallimard, 1941).