In some way, shape, or form, all periods of nineteenth-century Haitian poetry harkenback to the Haitian Revolution, that singular and unprecedented monumental event which still
captures the imagination and incites interrogation. “Where, then is the truth of Haiti?” is
symptomatic of the questions posed by Haitians and non-Haitians alike, in the aftermath of the
revolution, on the eve of the centennial, and during bicentennial celebrations.^323 In the
nineteenth century, as in the twentieth and twenty-first, Haiti finds itself in the shadow of its
revolution, the one which Trouillot noted, and as I quoted in my introduction, had expressed
itself largely through its deeds. Perhaps this inability to live up to this event in writing, to
express its significance, to articulate its “unthinkability,” is why a writer like de Vastey laments
being reduced to the pen in light of Haiti’s past military achievements, or why Massillon Coicou
regrets not having fought with the revolutionary soldiers he lauds in his poetry.^324 In spite of the
obstacles examined in this study, Ardouin, Nau, Durand, and Coicou, all chose to write, and it is
their poetry which so aptly captures the aspirations, ambivalence, clairvoyance, and
transcendence of nineteenth-century Haitian thought.
It goes without saying that there is no one truth of Haiti any more than there is one truthof any other nation. Moreover, in the course of writing this dissertation, investigating each
literary period and uncovering further texts, I came to see that each subject of study could indeed
have been expanded into subsequent chapters it its own right, and that many other poems and
poets could also have been considered. This study thus represents a compromise between giving
a survey of the largely unaccounted for nineteenth-century literature in Haiti and a more focused
study, on, for example, the Haitian poet Oswald Durand. It remains, however, as stated in the
introduction, that poetry’s role in the building of Haiti’s national identity was crucial to this
(^323) Munro and Walcott-Hackshaw x.
(^324) Coicou, Poésies Nationales, 67