Poetry
Reliques d'un poète haïtien
Not translated into English
Coriolan Ardouin · 1837
Synopsis
A slim collection of verse dominated by lament: sadness, mourning and nostalgia recur from poem to poem, in a vocabulary of terror, distress and approaching death. The poet keeps to the alexandrine, rhymes flawlessly and turns to Greco-Roman antiquity; nature serves him as a last refuge, and one of the poems follows the departure of a slave ship.
Context
The poems appeared only after their author's death, in journals: the Revue des colonies, the Revue contemporaine and the Revue des deux mondes according to Île en île, L'Union d'Ignace Nau according to the Phares haïtiens. In 1837, Émile Nau gathered them under this title. The alexandrine, the perfect rhyme and the evocation of Antiquity show the influence of Casimir Delavigne and Lamartine. A legend says that a black butterfly settled on the poet's cradle on the day of his birth.
Who it is for
A short book of poems in French, in the public domain, which an edition from Port-au-Prince reissued in 2005; sadness forms its main matter.
Prizes and reception
Classed in the School of 1836, formed after the poet's death, the collection has been reissued several times in Haiti, according to Île en île.
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