J’ai chanté nos oiseaux, nos fertiles campagnes,
Et les grappes de fruits courbant nos bananiers,
Et le campêche en fleurs, parfumant nos montagnes,
Et les grands éventails de nos verts lataniers. (5-8)As Durand’s emphasis on Haitian landscape throughout his collection will illustrate,Durand concurs with Delorme in theory but less in practice. Durand’s focus on natural beauty
coincides with Delorme’s theory that literature is that which conveys an “attrait du beau,” and an
“élévation au bien.”^191 Additionally, much of Durand’s collection, beginning with the
“Dédicace,” coincides with aesthetic and thematic norms typically associated with Romantic
poetry. However, it is also important to note that Delorme’s prescriptions for national literature
do not necessarily include rooting themes in local sources. Delorme’s own fiction, which
includes three novels, has nothing intrinsically to do with Haiti; his novel Francesca, for
example, is a romance set in Italy. Delorme shares his convictions with many other Haitian
theorists and writers of his time: promoting Haitian literature is less about the content and more
about Haitians participating in the authorship of texts which will express universal notions of
beauty. In Durand’s collection, however, it is not just nature and beauty but Haitian nature and
beauty which provide inspiration. Durand joyfully expresses the vitality and openness of his
poetic project in the second stanza of his “Dédicace” with an emphasis on Haitian terrain. The
descriptions cited earlier, of budding trees and fertile land, continue as figures of rhetoric. The
third stanza of the poem reads as follows:
J’ai chanté notre plage où la vague se brise
Sur les pieds tortueux du raisinier des mers ;^192
Nos sveltes cocotiers, qui prêtent à la brise
Des sons purs qu’elle mêle au bruit des flots amers. (9-12)(^191) Delorme 202.
(^192) According to one dictionary, a “raisinier” is an “arbre d’Afrique tropical (fam. Anacardiacées) aux fruits
comestibles ressemblant à des raisins [...] raisinier d’Amérique ou Antilles fr./ raisinier bord-de-mer : arbre tortueux
(fam: polygonacées).” “Raisinier,” Dictionnaire Universel Francophone, 1997 ed.