Poetry of Revolution: Romanticism and National Projects

Ainsi qu’à l’occident, lorsque le soleil pâle

S’amincit par degrés et plonge dans les flots,

Des flocons empourprés, brillant au ciel d’opale,

Y forment un instant de ravissants tableaux; (1-4)

In this poem, colorful images of an evening sky, conveyed as a ravishing painting, are

directly compared to the momentary inspiration of this collection of poetry. As Paulhan would

explain it, the natural beauty of a sunset is inherently poetic. It is therefore understandable why it

may find its way into Haitian and French poetry alike:

Pour banal que soit un lieu commun, il peut toujours avoir été inventé par qui le

prononce: il s’accompagne même, en ce cas, d’un vif sentiment de nouveauté [...]

Il arrive à chacun de nous d’observer quelque jour: ‘Si l’on voyait ce coucher de

soleil sur un tableau, l’on dirait que ce n’est pas vrai.’ [...] Ainsi les mêmes

contes, les mêmes dictons semblent être nés à la fois dans les pays les plus

éloignés et y renaître indéfinitivement – mais non pas nécessairement sans effort,

ni joie d’imagination.^190

Delormes’s comments about literature’s role in creating great nations and the

consideration that Paulhan gives to poetic topoi serve to contextualize Durand’s poetics. These

insights, however, also complicate what it means to be a Haitian poet in late nineteenth-century

Haiti. If Haitian poets like Durand are writing in French and with the same literary conventions

we would find in the French literary tradition, is there to be no specificity defining the Haitian

poet? The relevance of this question is especially acute for Haiti’s first self-declared and

publicly recognized national poet in the nineteenth century. In light of these questions it is

useful to return to those beginning verses of Durand’s “Dédicace” and to the descriptions of

nature which frame his work:

(^190) Paulhan 193.