Poetry of Revolution: Romanticism and National Projects

sown in Haiti’s colonial past, to refute pervasive racism in Coicou’s time, and to combat internal

struggles. Although correlating color (black and mulatto) with political affiliation, had, as

mentioned previously, become increasingly difficult, these distinctions continued to plague

Haitian society. The urgency to narrate national unity can be seen as a response to various

crises, including the economic and military interests which divided the black urban elite from the

poorer peasants. Again, the warning Coicou issues could equally apply to all Haitians, black and

mulatto, who are not in solidarity with the majority of Haiti’s population.

For Coicou, reclaiming identity through historical remembrance and deepening racial

consciousness become imperatives to national purpose and poetic practice. Just a year after the

publication of Poésies Nationales, Coicou wrote the following in the preface to one his plays:

...le but est là devant, toujours le même, et nous y allons, nous persuadant, nous

convainquant de plus en plus qu’en ces jours où nous sommes de notre vie de

peuple il n’est de rien tant besoin que de faire la part plus grande aux idées et aux

sentiments, et, entre tous, à ceux du PAYS et de la RACE ; car c’est bien de la

conception que se seront faite de ces idées et de l’émotion qu’auront éprouvée à

ces sentiments l’élite de nos penseurs, en premier lieu, et la majorité nationale, en

second ; c’est de cela surtout, avant tout, que l’avenir résultera pour nous,--riant

ou sombre.^289

Although Coicou concedes that the relationship between race and nation for many

Haitian thinkers had indeed been, at least on some level, fairly explicit, he calls for a renewed

emphasis at this historical juncture. He, however, accords an unprecedented importance to race

in Haitian identity, a commitment to nation and to race which, he argues, must begin as a deep

conviction on the part of Haiti’s elite. Interestingly, Coicou does not promise that such a

commitment will lead to prosperity. Indeed, Coicou’s work bears witness to a progressive

awareness among Haitian intellectuals that national ambitions are bound to fail at least in part

because of racial underpinnings. As will become apparent, the refocusing of commitment to race

(^289) Massillon Coicou, L’Oracle: poème dramatique haïtien (1893; Paris: Atelier haïtiens, 1901) 5-6.