7 - Mimetic Mastery and Colonial Mimicry: The “Candio” in the Popular Creole (Kreyòl) Literary Tradition

Summary

In Revolutionary Saint-Domingue and early independent Haiti, side by side with the emergence of important political texts by (sometimes analphabet) former slave leaders working in tandem with secretaries, we find the documentation of Creole (Kreyòl) lyric poetry representing the experience of non-whites. This material aligns smoothly with contemporaneous descriptions of lyrical traditions by non-whites, but has often been identified as the work of colonists, who may more properly, in many cases, have been editors, co-authors, or print cultural mediators—“secretaries” of a different stripe—for the African diasporan creative verbal productions in which their society was steeped.

M.-E. Descourtilz was one of the few editors to have described such a process, in relation to the poem discussed at the close of Chapter 6:

Comme je trouvai les idées de ces jeunes amans [sic] mal secondées par les expressions, et que l'air m'en parut insignifiant, je crus devoir […] en faveur de la délicatesse de leurs sentimens [sic], concourir à les faire plaindre, et estimer des coeurs sensibles. C'est à cette considération que je rectifiai le mieux possible les paroles de leur entretien auquel j'adaptai un nouvel air de ma composition.

(As I found the ideas of these young lovers poorly articulated in the expressions they chose, and in the melody, which I found insignificant, I thought I should […] to support the delicacy of their sentiments, make them lament, and give full emphasis to their sensitive hearts. […]