Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0157/01571.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 26KB | 440 lines

$Unique_ID{COW01571}
$Pretitle{364}
$Title{Haiti
Chapter 6B.   Artistic and Intellectual Expression}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Thomas E. Weil}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{haitian
french
haiti
port-au-prince
le
literary
united
center
de
radio}
$Date{1973}
$Log{}
Country:     Haiti
Book:        Haiti, a Country Study
Author:      Thomas E. Weil
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1973

Chapter 6B.   Artistic and Intellectual Expression

Literature

     Critics have generally discerned four stages in the evolution of Haitian
literature. The first, spanning the period from independence in 1804 to about
1820, was characterized by chauvinism and the pioneering spirit. The second,
influenced by romanticism, began slowly and reached full maturity only after
the fall of President Jean-Pierre Boyer in 1860 led to greater freedom of
expression. Although the histories and biographies that predominated during
the first period and the poetry and fiction that gained popularity during
the second often dealt with Haitian subject matter, they were
indistinguishable in style from the French works of corresponding time
periods. Many of the Haitian literary figures were educated in France, had
their books published there, and received recognition from the French Academy
(l'Academie Francaise).

     Jacques C. Antoine, founder of two literary journals in the 1930s and
1940s, maintains that Haitian literature was born of anger directed against
the white masters of the colonial period. He suggests that the obsession,
throughout much of the nineteenth century, to prove that the Negro was not
intellectually inferior resulted in a "servile imitation of French
models"-French not only in style but in mode of thinking as well. Antoine
concedes, however, that there were exceptions, such as Oswald Durand, whose
lyric poetry in both French and Creole conveyed something of the national
mystique.

     A third stage, generally described as one of the most brilliant epochs of
Haitian letters, began toward the end of the nineteenth century and continued
beyond the centennial of national independence in 1904. The so-called
Centennial Generation was distinguished by the dedication of its members to
a rejuvenation of society through literature. It was composed in part of
former pupils of the Lycee Petion, who had studied under teachers imported
from France. They were stimulated by the need to compete with - and at the
same time distinguish themselves from - their comrades who had studied in
Paris. In 1894 they grouped themselves around the magazine La Jeune Haiti,
whose founder, Justin Lherisson, was noted for his portrayal of Haitian family
life.

     Massillon Coicou, poet and playwright of the Centennial Generation, was
one of the first writers to introduce Creole into the national literature. In
1898 Coicou and other members of the club known as Les Emulateurs (The
Emulators) founded the literary journal La Ronde. The second director of that
journal, Dantes Bellegarde (1877-1966), distinguished himself as diplomat and
educator as well as philosopher and social historian. Author of some
twenty-four books, he was the last influential figure in a long line of
francophile traditionalists.

     Another member of that generation, Jean Price-Mars, was a precursor of
the fourth and contemporary stage of Haitian literary development. Early in
the twentieth century, Price-Mars and his fellow ethnologist J.-C. Dorsainvil
focused attention on Haitian folklore and paid tribute to its literary values.
It was not until the United States occupation, however, that the nationalism
and social consciousness that have characterized the contemporary period
pervaded the intellectual community. The transition in both style and content
constituted the literary expression of negritude. This upsurge of pride in
blackness and in the African heritage, reflected since the 1940s in virtually
all aspects of national life, has been viewed as an attempt by the culturally
ambivalent middle and upper classes, especially those of the intelligentsia
who had been educated in Paris, to establish their identity. The peasants,
of course, had no need of it; they knew who they were.

     Resentment against foreign occupation was translated into wideranging
literary efforts, including novels, poetry, drama, essays, and scholarly
works. The anguish of occupation and the shock of the rediscovery that
mulattoes, long the favored race in Haiti, were still treated as racially
inferior by many whites was perhaps best expressed by Leon Laleau in his book
Le Choc (The Shock).

     Driven by curiosity about voodoo and folkways, educated young people,
such as those who founded La Revue Indigene (The Indigenous Review) in 1927,
left their comfortable homes to live in slums and rural villages. Their
experiences generated social protest as well as literary nationalism. These
trends reach a high point in the poems, novels, and ethnological studies of
Jacques Romain. His Gouverneurs de la Rosee (Masters of the Dew), a powerful
and realistic portrayal in creolized French of life in a peasant community,
has been translated into some seventeen languages. It was published four
months after his untimely death in 1944.

     Three novels of Haitian peasant life, Le Crayon de Dieu (The Pencil of
God), Canape-Vert (The Green Couch), and La Bete de Musseau (The Beast of
the Haitian Hills), written by the brothers Pierre Marcelin and Philippe
Thoby-Marcelin, also received widespread acclaim at home and abroad. They were
written with greater detachment than were the works of Romain.

     Efforts by Frank Fouche and F. Morisseau-Leroy to nationalize the
dramatic arts included the rendering of Sophocles' Oedipus Rex and Antigone
into their own version of Creole. Several poets, including Carl Brouard,
Magloire St. Aude, and Emile Roumer, have been noted for works that, although
linguistically French, are Creole in expression and sentiment. In 1935 Louis
Diaquoi, a leading poet and journalist, fostered a group called The Sorcerers
(Les Griots), who derived their inspiration from voodoo. Francois Duvalier, a
member of this group, later used his intimate knowledge of the religion to
great advantage in concentrating power in the presidency.

     One of the most prominent of the younger poets is Rene Depestre. His
Minerai Noir (Black Ore) and Traduit du Grand Large (Crossing of the Open
Sea), written in exile, denounce the white world and express nostalgia for
Africa and belief in human brotherhood.

     Haitian literary activity more or less coasted on the momentum of the
renaissance of the 1940s until the mid-1960s. As Duvalier had himself been a
participant in the black nationalist literary movement, he did not move
initially to supress it in systematic fashion. In fact, he introduced
national literature into the schools for the first time. By the mid-1960s,
however, the pervasiveness of political repression was such that most members
of the intelligentsia had been rendered silent or driven into exile, and
national literary development was suspended.

The Graphic Arts

     The renaissance in literature had been underway for about fifteen years
before the rich potential in painting and sculpture flowered into a national
movement. Until the Art Center was opened in Port-au-Prince in 1944, those who
painted for the love of it did so in isolation, without encouragement,
instruction, or recognition. There were no art schools, museums, or commercial
galleries.

     The movement was sparked by a United States artist, DeWitt Peters, who
was teaching English in a Haitian government school. Peters felt frustrated
because there was no colony of artists with whom to spend his leisure hours.
He rented a building and spread the word that artists were invited to meet
there, work together, and exhibit their work; self-taught painters began to
appear and timidly offer their work in exchange for a few dollars and painting
materials. When Rigaud Benoit first appeared at the c