Poetry of Revolution: Romanticism and National Projects

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This dissertation examines the largely dismissed nineteenth-century tradition of Romantic

poetry in Haiti from the 1830s to the 1890s. I synthesize the conclusions of various studies

prompted by the 2004 Haitian bicentennial in order to challenge the claims that nineteenth-

century Haitian poems are banal parodies of French texts and simple preludes to twentieth-

century Haiti literature. I argue that imitation becomes an impossible label with which to

understand the complexities of Haitian poetry and national sentiment. Considering Haiti’s

ambiguous relationship to modernity and the clairvoyance with which Haitian poets expressed

national concerns, Haitian poetry constitutes a deliberate practice in the construction,

legitimization and expression of national identity.

In each of the three chapters I rely on historical context in order to situate the

poetry and examine it through textual analysis. I explore in an initial chapter how political

changes in Haiti in the 1820s, along with recognition of independence from France, coincided

with the subsequent birth of Haitian Romanticism in the 1830s. The poetry of Coriolan Ardouin

and Ignace Nau documents the development of poetic subjectivity and the inaugurating of

2008

POETRY OF REVOLUTION: ROMANTICISM AND NATIONAL PROJECTS IN

NINETEENTH-CENTURY HAITI

Amy Reinsel, PhD

University of Pittsburgh, 2008

POETRY OF REVOLUTION: ROMANTICISM AND NATIONAL PROJECTS IN