in their own literary development. In the article which introduces Les voix intérieures, the writer
states “ ...les grandes œuvres littéraires de la France dont il nous est permis, au moins par la
langue et les idées, de partager les impressions [...] il faut bien alors que nous allions puiser
l’émotion aux sources françaises.”^83
A large part of Romantic expression of course includes the liberation of poeticsubjectivity which would allow the Haitian poet to transcend the previous role as social
entertainer or government servant which had defined poetic function in earlier decades.
Ardouin’s and Nau’s personal poetry may seem less interesting than their more political poems,
it does account for a substantial portion of their work. As evident in the title alone, Ardouin’s
poem “Moi-même” serves as such an example.^84 This sentimental and largely autobiographical
poem begins with this stanza:
Pauvre jeune homme âgé de vingt-un ans à peine [sic]
Je suis déjà trop vieux. Oui, l’existence humaine
Est bien nue à mes yeux.
Pas une île de fleurs dans cette mer immense!
Pas une étoile d’or qui la nuit se balance.
Au dôme de mes cieux! (1-6)As with early Romantic poetry in France, the revolutionary nature of Ardouin’s andNau’s poetry does not rest with radical innovations in form. The stanza begins with two
alexandrine lines followed by a verse with half that number, and then the sequence repeats. This
meter, along with the rhyme scheme, can also be traced to poems by Lamartine and Hugo. It is
unlikely, however, that Haitian intellectuals and poets themselves viewed such an appropriation
of structure as imitative in any negative sense. Numerous articles in Le Républicain as in
L’Union suggest an awareness of how “imitation” might interfere in the building of national
(^83) “Poésies: Les voix intérieures par V. Hugo,” L’Union le 12 avril 1838.
(^84) All of Ardouin’s poems are quoted from the 1881 edition of Poésies (Port-au-Prince: Etheart).