Soumets la Terre,
Les fleurs, les bois,
Lyre! À ta voix.
A ton mystère. (1-4)^199Michael Dash, briefly alluding to the Parnassian aspect of Durand’s poetry, finds that it isthe plasticity in some of Durand’s descriptions which are akin to Parnassian technique.^200 He
quotes from two of Durand’s poems, one of which is entitled “Idalina.” This poem about a
Haitian woman includes the following physical description:
Sa légère chevelure
A l’allure
De nos joyeux champs de riz
Quand ses boucles sous la brise
Qui les frise
Bondissent en petits plis... (33-38).This preview of Parnassian influence will carry greater import in the section on Durand’snature poems. In my introduction of this aspect of Durand’s poetry, I merely intend to mention
this neglected aspect of Durand’s writing in anticipation of more precise interpretation. Critics
understandably vary in their opinion as to what constitutes the Parnassian moments in Haitian
literature. Due in part to the diversity of French Parnassian poetry itself, it is difficult to pinpoint
the extent of Parnassian influence on Durand’s poetry. As a literary trend, it connoted among
other characteristics impersonality and formal perfection, characteristics which would apply to
the examples of Durand’s poetry as cited by Dash. Much of Durand’s poetry was indeed
contemporary to French publications of Parnassian poetry: Le Parnasse contemporain spanned
three volumes in 1866, 1871, and 1876, and José-Maria Heredia published his collection Les
Trophées in 1893, just three years before Durand’s Rires et Pleurs. Durand greatly admired the
French Parnassian poet, François Coppée, who once introduced Durand at the Société des gens
(^199) Le Parnasse contemporain (Genève: Slakine, 1971).
(^200) Dash, Literature 18.