Poetry of Revolution: Romanticism and National Projects

2.0 PERSONAL HISTORIES, NATIONAL PASTS, AND REVOLUTIONARY

POETRY: CORIOLAN ARDOUIN AND IGNACE NAU IN HAITI OF THE 1830S

2.1 INTRODUCTION

The rationale for beginning this study with the 1830s is both political and aesthetic. It

was during this time that fragmented Haitian territories and governments consolidated as one

“Haiti,” that Jean-Pierre Boyer conquered various governments on the island of Hispaniola, and

that recognition of Haitian independence was finally granted by France. These on-going changes

just decades after the Haitian Revolution were accompanied by an aesthetic revolution which

rejected poetry of earlier years and ushered in Haitian Romanticism which would set the stage

for later generations of Haitian writers in the nineteenth century.

As mentioned in the introduction, Haitian literature during the first two decades after

Haitian independence was primarily a commissioned activity for one of two Haitian

governments: a black kingdom in the north and a mulatto republic in the south. Most poetry,

neoclassical in style, was published in the southern republic. The literary journal l’Abeille

Haytienne (1817-1820) contained poems praising the republic’s Haitian leaders and celebrating