D&#x27;un Atlantique à l&#x27;autre : traversées littéraires de l&#x27;Atlantique francophone après la Révolution haïtienne

Bruce, Michael Clinton

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Year:: 2013
Contributor:: Bruce, Michael Clinton (creator); Schultz, Gretchen (Director); Ravindranathan, Thangam (Reader); Jonassaint, Jean (Reader); Brown University. French Studies (sponsor)
Genre:: theses
Subject:: transatlantic literary studies; Francophone studies; Atlantic world; Haitian Revolution; 19th century French literature; Louisiana French literature; abolition of slavery; free people of color; American occupation of Haiti; crossing; Marceline Desbordes-Valmore; Alphonse de Lamartine; Eugène Sue; Michel Séligny; Joanni Questy; Charles Testut; Alfred Mercier; George Dessommes; Fernand Hibbert; Jacques Roumain; Haitian literature; Slavery; Free blacks; Desbordes-Valmore, Marceline > 1786-1859; Lamartine, Alphonse de > 1790-1869; Sue, Eugène > 1804-1857; Séligny, Michel; Testut, Charles > 1819-1892; Mercier, Alfred > 1816-1894; Roumain, Jacques > 1907-1944
Extent:: ix, 431 p.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7301/Z01G0JMW

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Abstract:: This dissertation explores literary representations of the Francophone Atlantic world between the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804) and the first U.S. occupation of Haiti (1915-1934). The struggle for Haitian independence serves as a starting point both because it challenged the system of colonial slavery, beyond the claims of European Enlightenment, and because its success simultaneously deprived France of its most prized colony, Saint-Domingue (Haiti), and its largest overseas territory, Louisiana. Both areas produced literatures in French and maintained close yet complex cultural ties with the former métropole. Examining works from France, Creole Louisiana, and Haiti, the author thus reconstructs how, in this "post/colonial" context, a transoceanic imaginary dealt with the ongoing problems of slavery, racism, and the legacy of metropolitan hegemony. <br/> <br/> Literary treatment of these issues is approached through the thematic lens of "crossing" (la traversée), which is theorized on several levels: as a narrative device (the sea/travel/the Middle Passage), as a question of narrativity itself, and as a condition of textual production and reception through the circulation of persons, ideas, and (inter)texts. The author ultimately argues that transatlantic literary geographies bespeak underlying difficulties of narrative enunciation, related to the status of literature itself, emerging from geocultural realities shaped by the Haitian Revolution. <br/> <br/> D'un Atlantique à l'autre contains eight chapters organized into three main sections. Part I considers works by French authors (Desbordes-Valmore, Sue, and Lamartine) which contest the persistence of slavery in France's colonies until 1848; nonetheless, a marked ambivalence towards the ideological heritage of the Haitian Revolution is expressed through geographical distortions or "anatopisms." Part II problematizes the ambiguities of Louisiana Creole identity, both in its racial and linguistic dimensions, as affected by its colonial origins and its evolution over the nineteenth century; writers studied include Michel Séligny, Charles Testut, Alfred Mercier, Joanni Questy, and George Dessommes. In Part III, devoted to Haitian fiction of the early twentieth century, the author examines the theme of "the return to one's native land" later made famous by Aimé Césaire, though already prominent in Fernand Hibbert's Séna and Jacques Roumain's La Proie et l'Ombre.
Notes:: Thesis (Ph.D. -- Brown University (2013)

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Rights: In Copyright
Restrictions on Use: Collection is open for research.

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Bruce, Michael Clinton, "D'un Atlantique à l'autre : traversées littéraires de l'Atlantique francophone après la Révolution haïtienne" (2013). French Studies Theses and Dissertations. Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library. https://doi.org/10.7301/Z01G0JMW

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French Studies Theses and Dissertations

Theses and Dissertations for the French Studies department.
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D'un Atlantique à l'autre : traversées littéraires de l'Atlantique francophone après la Révolution haïtienne