Poetry of Revolution: Romanticism and National Projects

(Sean Pound) #1

entered the world. After Adam and Eve’s fall in Eden, their only consolation was love for each


other, so God introduced jealousy as their final punishment. This poem is frequently mentioned


in both nineteenth and twentieth century texts about Haitian literature because it was reportedly


read at a meeting of the Société des gens de lettres during Durand’s visit to France in 1888.^214 A


variety of Haitian sources recount a similar story in which François Coppée read the poem aloud


at the meeting, and after the applause Coppée surprised the crowd by announcing, “Cette poésie


n’est pas de moi mais de mon illustre confrère noir.” In this case, the anecdote not only


demonstrates how the choice of Durand’s content and his style of verse meant that the poem was


acclaimed according to poetic norms at the time, but it also suggests the barrier which racial or


national identity may have posed to its success. The fact that such details remained hidden


benefited the poem’s reception. Durand and Haitian poets intuitively employed the same


rhetorical figures as writers elsewhere, and because poems like “La Jalousie” are rooted in


common Western mythology and universal themes, their presence in a collection like Rires et


Pleurs works to establish Durand as a poet per se. In the case of Haitian poets writing in the


nineteenth century, the absence of traceable identity through distinguishing themes or styles may


also be desirable. Anténor Firmin and Louis-Joseph Janvier, Haitian essayists and


contemporaries of Durand who both wrote rebuttals to Arthur de Gobineau’s L’inégalité des


races humaines, analyze the strategic value of employing such conventional rhetoric in Haitian


poetry. They do not employ literary terminology but argue that the existence of literature in


Haiti is a powerful response to European accusations. Firmin makes this general statement in


anticipation of the writers he will discuss:


(^214) I have not located a French text which mentions Durand’s presence at this meeting. However, many Haitian texts
cite it anecdotally, such as Berrou and Pompilus, 323.

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