turbulent nineteenth century and precede by nearly one hundred years any indigenous literature
in the rest of the French Caribbean. Given the privileged notion of poetry in nineteenth-century
Haiti, it is especially paradoxical that such fundamental texts continue to be overlooked two
hundred years after the Haitian Revolution.
The cursory comments about nineteenth-century Haitian poetry in the last few yearsblindly and inaccurately repeat the dismissals of earlier critics. Adopting neo-classical and
Romantic style and writing in French rather than in Haitian Creole remain the prominent
criticisms leveled against nineteenth-century Haitian literature, often reproached for its elitism
and imitation of French literary trends. Sybille Fischer, in the same work I recently referenced,
deems the early Haitian novel and poetry “relatively unimportant” in a post-revolutionary society
struggling with political and economic reconstruction. Although literature as an “elite” endeavor
can also be applied to Spanish America, she specifies, only theater could really find usefulness in
postcolonial Haiti. Despite being performed in French, its presentational mode could serve a
pedagogical function to Creole-speaking audiences.^11 To be fair, much of Fischer’s assessments
come from Haitian critics themselves, like novelist Jacques-Stephen Alexis, who points to a
notion of “parrot poetry” practiced in Haiti before 1915.^12 Indeed, this consensus has had many
adherents throughout the decades and in varying locations. Martin Munro, in a four-page section
of his study “Two Revolutions and an Occupation: Haitian Historical Consciousness, 1804-
1946,” sweepingly labels one hundred and fifty years as “postcolonial mimicry,” “cloying
francophilia,” and “unflinching patriotism.”^13 It is not until after this period, he finds, that the
novel can more authentically express Haitian identity since it is no longer haunted by
(^11) Fischer 204-206.
(^12) Fischer 206.
(^13) Martin Munro, “Petrifying Myths: Lack and Excess in Caribbean and Haitian History,” Reinterpreting the Haitian
Revolution and its Cultural Aftershocks 24-27.