awareness” which the word “classic” could not claim. It is poetry which is most associated with
this new consciousness in France and in Haiti alike. Although primitive societies and people
throughout the ages have had their poets, it is, as Bénichou convincingly demonstrates, during
the Romantic age that poetry’s sacred and therefore indispensable mission is generated and
consecrated, given meaning anew.^23 As I will explain further in the following chapters, poetry is
not only the dominant mode of expression in Haiti from the 1830s forward, but it is also the one
shown to be integral to creating and legitimizing Haiti’s national identity. Considering the
earlier period of 1804-1825, in which poetry was written but not privileged, and neoclassical in
form and purpose as opposed to Romantic, would not, it must be specified, necessarily mean a
more complete assessment of the nineteenth century. Haitians not only wrote prose, essays, and
plays throughout the century, but symbolist and eclectic poetry also began to emerge in the last
two decades. Turn of the century poetry in Haiti is often characterized as metaphysical and
cosmopolitan, and J. Michael Dash has a thorough re-evaluation of this period in a section of his
study, Literature and Ideology in Haiti: 1915-1960.^24
Before outlining the three chapters which will follow and further examining theimportance of poetry and the issue of language in the period I consider, I will nonetheless give an
overview of the texts which were authored just after the Haitian Revolution in order to
demonstrate what foundations and points of contentions resurface during Haiti’s Romantic
period. After the proclamation of Haitian independence in 1804, Jean-Jacques Dessalines ruled
Haiti until he was ambushed and killed by radical mulatto forces in 1806. From 1806 to 1825,
the territory known then and now as Haiti was sectioned into three parts and under the leaders
mentioned above. Three poets in particular mark these early years: Juste Chanlatte, a general,
(^23) Bénichou 87 and 88.
(^24) J. Michael Dash, Literature and Ideology in Haiti: 1915-1961 (Totowa, NJ: Barnes and Nobles Books, 1981).