newly emerging state, and it is nothing short of a paradox that such fundamental texts continue to
be overlooked two hundred years after Haitian independence. In spite of an inevitable
incompleteness, one central focus of this study has been to address this paradox and rectify what
has long been a misunderstanding about the value of Haiti’s nineteenth-century poetry.
Finally, in the year of the bicentennial and beyond, as in the nineteenth century, thenotion of failure also haunts Haitians and non-Haitians alike. This was especially acute during
the events of 2004 which culminated in Aristide’s exile and has remained unchanged four years
later as the United Nations forces are still largely in charge of the country. If there is a purported
failure, then it is all the more paramount to examine Haiti’s beginnings and its fundamental
rapport with Western powers. This includes reading Haitian literature and attempting to
understand how Haiti’s earliest intellectuals articulated their perceptions. For the purposes of my
study, this means noting the ways in which Haitian poets express the ambitions and frailties
inherent in early Haitian nationalism and viewing poetry as a noble and deliberate practice from
which to convey the complexities of a national project. For all these reasons and more, Haitian
literature in the nineteenth century can in no way be relegated to blind imitation of French trends
or reduced to a mere prelude to the somehow more authentic literary expressions in the twentieth
century. It is its own invaluable project, a series of national projects, in its own right, which
deserves more prominent consideration in the study of world literatures.