Poetry of Revolution: Romanticism and National Projects

playwrights. Even at this young age, much of what constituted a national poet for Coicou also

had to do with the place in which local history had in a particular work. This history, as evident

below, may indeed be tragic but nonetheless sublime. Coicou went on to explain in this same

editorial the impact Bathier’s literature had in his own interest in literature and history several

years later:

Mais des souvenirs qu’évoque le nom de Bathier, le plus beau date [sic] de plus

longtemps encore. C’est Anacaona!...J’avais vu des théâtre d’école, montés vaille

que vaille; une fois même, à 10 ou 11 ans, j’avais joué, chez les Frères, le rôle de

la fille d’Oronte dans le Malade Imaginaire; mais qu’y eut des théâtres où l’on

pouvait voir autre chose que les choses qui font rire, j’étais, jusqu’au soir

d’Anacaona, à des lieues de le croire!...Anacaona, c’est un bloc de l’histoire à

peine dégrossi, à peine transformé, mais assez brillant en soi... en revanche, quel

mouvement et quelle vie! Non, vous n’imaginerez pas comme c’était beau,

comme l’on éprouvait intense l’impression d’être ramené tout à coup à plus de

trois siècles en arrière...^249

Anacaona was the Taino princess killed by Spanish invaders. As recounted in the first

chapter of this dissertation, her story had been explored by Haitian poet Coriolan Ardouin in the

poem “Floranna la fiancée” and by Haitian journalist and historian Emile Nau in his work

Historie des caciques d’Haïti. As did Haitian writers in the 1830s, Coicou recognized Anacaona

as an important piece of Haitian pre-Columbian history. His admiration for its literary portrayal

rested not only with the historical account itself but also with the tragic beauty of its memory.

Here, he alluded already to the penchant for melancholic subjects which would characterize his

work and to a passion for poetry which connects Haiti of his day to an otherwise distant past.

Coicou’s early interest in letters and prize-winning performance in rhetoric led to his

appointment as an assistant at the Lycée Pétion where he had earlier completed his education.

After two years of working at this lycée, he went on to occupy different government posts, in

education, housing, and in the Department of War. Overall, the period of 1891 to 1897 proved to

(^249) La Ronde 78.