only posthumously. The exact composition dates for individual poems are not known, but all
poems appear to have been written prior to or during the mid 1830s when several of their poems
were published. Both poets published not only in L’Union but also in Parisian reviews dealing
with French colonial affairs such as La Revue des colonies during approximately the same
period.^76 All of Ardouin’s poems, even those printed in the above publications, appeared shortly
after his death, which is believed to have been either late 1835 or early 1836.
Although it is not known if French literature was part of the Institution’s curriculum, it isgenerally thought that the work of French writers infiltrated Haiti through French journals and
texts arriving from across the Atlantic during this period. As critics like J. Michael Dash and
Leon-François Hoffmann have demonstrated, it has not been difficult to trace the similarities,
stylistically and thematically, between Haitian and French poets in the nineteenth century.^77 It is
also not insignificant that the only two French poets whose poems appear in Le Républicain and
L’Union are Alphonse de Lamartine and Victor Hugo, as it is these two poets whose poetry at
this time incarnates the important veins of Romanticism and the significance of the French
Revolution on personal, social, and historical levels. In the poetry of Lamartine, it is the
personal lyricism, connection to nature, and an array of themes like nostalgia, regret, and the
fleeting nature of human existence which resonated with Haitian poets as universally human
concerns. By the early 1830s, Lamartine’s concern with the social mission of the poet is evident,
and a progressive concept of history was capturing the attention of Haitian intellectuals. An
(^76) Some anthologies of Haitian literature also mention that Ardouin’s and Nau’s poetry was published in La Revue
des deux mondes and La Revue coloniale, although I have not yet found their poetry in these journals.
(^77) Léon-François Hoffmann in Littérature d’Haïti has thematically and stylistically compared the verses of several
poets from the 1830s to show similarities between their work and that of Lamaratine and Hugo. For Dash’s
comments see Literature and Ideology in Haiti: 1915-1961.