criticism in this regard will be especially important when considering Ardouin’s and Nau’s
poems about the Haitian Revolution later in this chapter.
2.2 CORIOLAN ARDOUIN AND IGNACE NAU: PERSONAL HISTORIES,
PERSONAL POETRY
Coriolan Ardouin and Ignace Nau were among a handful of Haitian poets whose writingin the 1830s began to challenge accepted notions of Haitian poetry since independence. Jean-
Baptiste Chenet, Alibée Féry, and Pierre Faubert, along with Ardouin and Nau, are the names
occurring most frequently in the journals Le Républicain and L’Union, the weekly publications
which were important for the transmission of their work and, not incidentally, were also the
venue through which opposition to Boyer was expressed.^71 The period of the 1830s is actually
marked by great literary diversity, but it is these poets, sometimes referred to as the "cénacle
romantique," whose work is most associated with the emerging theories of literature and national
identity as put forth by the journals’ editors. I specifically focus on Ardouin and Nau, who are
most consistently remembered by later generations of Haitians in both the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries. Haitian poet Oswald Durand mentions them by name in his 1869
“Dédicace” to his collection of poems Rires et Pleurs.^72 Twentieth-century poet and novelist
René Depestre acknowledges Ignace Nau.^73 My readings of the personal poems by these two
writers will be framed by discussions of various literary and political issues which inevitably
(^71) Nicholls 74.
(^72) Oswald Durand, Rires et Pleurs (Paris: Editions Crété, 1896).
(^73) René Depestre in an interview published in Optique under the title, “Introduction à un art poétique haïtien,"
février, 1956.