Poetry of Revolution: Romanticism and National Projects in Nineteenth-century Haiti by Amy Reinsel B.A. Indiana University, Bloomington, 1993 M. A. University of Pittsburgh, 2000 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2008 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH Arts and Sciences This dissertation was presented by Amy Reinsel It was defended on July 30, 2008 and approved by Dr. Seymour Derscher, Professor, Department of History Dr. Roberta Hatcher, Assistant Professor, Department of French and Italian Dr. Philip Watts, Associate Professor, Department of French and Italian Dissertation Advisor: Dr. Giuseppina Mecchia, Associate Professor, Department of French and Italian ii POETRY OF REVOLUTION: ROMANTICISM AND NATIONAL PROJECTS IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY HAITI Amy Reinsel, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2008 This dissertation examines the largely dismissed nineteenth-century tradition of Romantic poetry in Haiti from the 1830s to the 1890s. I synthesize the conclusions of various studies prompted by the 2004 Haitian bicentennial in order to challenge the claims that nineteenth- century Haitian poems are banal parodies of French texts and simple preludes to twentieth- Copyright © by Amy Reinsel 2008 century Haiti literature. I argue that imitation becomes an impossible label with which to understand the complexities of Haitian poetry and national sentiment. Considering Haiti’s ambiguous relationship to modernity and the clairvoyance with which Haitian poets expressed national concerns, Haitian poetry constitutes a deliberate practice in the construction, legitimization and expression of national identity. In each of the three chapters I rely on historical context in order to situate the poetry and examine it through textual analysis. I explore in an initial chapter how political changes in Haiti in the 1820s, along with recognition of independence from France, coincided with the subsequent birth of Haitian Romanticism in the 1830s. The poetry of Coriolan Ardouin and Ignace Nau documents the development of poetic subjectivity and the inaugurating of iii national history which make this a pivotal period in Haitian poetry. A second chapter focuses on Haiti’s most prolific nineteenth-century poet, Oswald Durand, whose collection Rires et Pleurs includes poetry from the 1860s through the 1880s. Haitian theories of racial equality are expressed in Durand’s corpus and set within the thematic and aesthetic norms of French Romanticism, but the effort to inscribe a national and racial specificity enriches as much as it complicates his poetic project. In the final chapter, I document the shift that occurs for the last Haitian Romantic poet, Massillon Coicou. In his 1892 collection Poésies Nationales, the confident project of asserting national identity gives way to the sense of national failure due to an increasingly triumphant imperialism and internal corruption. On the eve of the Haitian centennial, Coicou’s verse demonstrates the ways in which political crisis in Haiti are inherently tied to the notion of poetry. He ultimately turns to political activism, and his assassination in 1908 symbolizes the demise of poetry as a viable, national project. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS 1.0 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 1 2.0 PERSONAL HISTORIES, NATIONAL PASTS, AND REVOLUTIONARY POETRY: CORIOLAN ARDOUIN AND IGNACE NAU IN HAITI OF THE 1830S ........ 30 2.1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................. 30 2.2 CORIOLAN ARDOUIN AND IGNACE NAU: PERSONAL HISTORIES, PERSONAL POETRY ....................................................................................................... 42 2.3 PRE-REVOLUTIONARY PASTS AND THE MAKING OF NATIONAL MYTHS 63 2.4 POEMS ABOUT THE HAITIAN REVOLUTION ....................................... 83 3.0 HAITI’S NATIONAL BARD WRITERS NATURE, LOVE, AND NATION: THE RIRES ET PLEURS OF OSWALD DURAND ............................................................ 105 3.1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................... 105 3.2 FRAMING A POETIC PROJECT ................................................................ 114 3.3 THE MAKINGS OF A NATIONAL POET AND THE VICISSITUDES OF A COLLECTION ............................................................................................................. 124 3.4 NATURE .......................................................................................................... 138 3.5 LOVE ................................................................................................................ 149 3.5.1 Love made him a poet ................................................................................. 149 v 3.5.2 Love on the Plantation ................................................................................ 156 3.6 THE CAGED BIRD AND A POET IN CHAINS ......................................... 165 3.7 RECASTING THE REVOLUTION .............................................................. 173 3.8 LEGACY AND CONCLUSION .................................................................... 178 4.0 NATIONAL POETRY AND FATEFUL POLITICS: THE WORK AND LEGACY OF MASSILLON COICOU .................................................................................. 180 4.1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................... 180 4.2 THE POET AND THE MUSE ....................................................................... 191 4.3 WARS AND RUMORS OF WARS ............................................................... 200 4.3.1 Triumphant imperialism and foreign invasions ....................................... 200 4.3.2 Gun-boats and Yankees .............................................................................. 209 4.3.3 Civil wars ...................................................................................................... 217 4.4 RACE, NATION, AND COICOU’S “GÉNIE AFRICAIN” ....................... 222 4.5 POETRY AND BEYOND: FROM HAITI TO PARIS AND BACK AGAIN 238 4.6 POLITICAL CAUSES AND CONSPIRACIES ........................................... 245 4.7 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 254 5.0 CONCLUSION ......................................................................................................... 257 APPENDIX A: POEMS BY CORIOLAN ARDOUIN AND IGNACE NAU ..................... 259 APPENDIX B: POEMS BY OSWALD DURAND ................................................................ 280 APPENDIX C : POEMS BY MASSILLON COICOU ......................................................... 314 BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................................................... 341 vi PREFACE This dissertation would never have been possible without the intellectual acumen, genuine interest, and interminable enthusiasm of my director, Giuseppina Mecchia. I am grateful for her spirited involvement throughout all stages of this project. I sincerely thank all of my committee members, Seymour Drescher, Roberta Hatcher, and Phil Watts, for their ongoing insights and encouragement. I express special gratitude to Dennis Looney for his help with the Latin references in my third chapter and to both him and Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski for all their generosity during my graduate studies. Throughout this project I have been touched by the love of my brother Kevin and of my both of my parents. I dedicate this work to my mother for the ways she has inspired me academically and personally. As is the case with any long project, there are many challenges which arise and changes which transpire, changes which are personal and professional, expected and unexpected. It has been largely through the unexpected that I have benefited most from the strength and talents of so many of my peers. I cannot close this preface without saying to Alison, Noémie, Jamie, Teresa, Robin, and Aparna, that you have unassumingly offered much more than what was already limitless and engaging collegial support. You have permanently transformed for me the experience of friendship. vii 1.0 INTRODUCTION The events of January 1, 2004, marking the bicentennial of Haiti’s independence from France and the founding of the world’s first black republic, occasioned celebration but also protest against the government of then Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. When unrest turned to armed struggle just two months later, the echoes of Haiti’s historic revolution, the result of the only successful slave revolt in history, combined with its subsequent legacy of political instability and relentless poverty to capture media attention around the world. Reflecting on the intense media coverage of those months, Martin Munro and Elizabeth Walcott-Hackshaw state: Suddenly, too, everyone has an opinion on Haiti. Curiously, these opinions are themselves echoes of the past, shaped as they are around long-standing proprietary misinterpretations of just what Haiti “represents.” 1 For many observers, they note, these opinions translated into recycled fears of Haitian violence, albeit at a safer distance via the television screen than two hundred years before. More positively, the bicentennial and the surrounding events prompted dozens of conferences and publications like the