Poetry of Revolution: Romanticism and National Projects

Alors c’est le repos éternel et sublime,

Alors c’est le bonheur! (25-30)

The reference and similarity to Job also works to connote the superiority of the poet, for

while his experiences may represent those of humankind, Job, in the Biblical account, is also

chosen by Satan for his extraordinary faith. Although overall the themes in Ardouin’s and in

Nau’s poetry may seem rather commonplace, we can note for example that this banal title, in

privileging the individual, nonetheless marks a sharp departure in the traditional focus of Haitian

poetry. Emile Nau’s essay simply called “Littérature,” appearing in the November 16, 1837

edition of L’Union elaborates further on why poetry of this nature, particularly this double

impulse of the personal and the universal, symbolizes an important step, a liberating force, in

Haiti’s literary development. Nau’s central argument hinges on the premise that the verse

written in Haiti since independence and still being written in Haiti at that time, verse which lacks

poetic subjectivity, can no longer qualify as poetry. There is such an unfortunate abundance of

‘oraisons funèbres’ and other types of public and commissioned poetry in Haiti as to border on

ridicule. There is also, Emile Nau states, the false equation between one who writes verse as a

mere exercise and a true poet:

on se croit poète pour avoir fait des vers, et une fois qu’on se l’est imaginé, il

n’est rien au monde de plus difficile que de s’en départir [...] cette idée d’écrire

ces lignes nous est venue après avoir lu, en plusieurs occasions, une foule d’essais

poétiques; ces poésies, en général, se remarquent par l’absence d’inspiration et

d’imagination, à laquelle supplée la mythologie... de la mythologie au dix-

neuvième siècle! De la mythologie en Haïti!^88

While this type of poetry may have been pleasing to the French king, Nau declares, it

serves no purpose in modern Haiti. Although the personal nature of poetry, as illustrated just in

the one poem we’ve seen so far, could easily be targeted as merely derivative of French poets, it

(^88) L’Union le 16 novembre 1837.