Mimetic Mastery and Colonial Mimicry In the First Franco-Antillean Creole Anthology

The anonymous 1811 Idylles et chansons, ou essais de po�sie cr�ole has been received as a minor work of Creole poetry by a single author. This essay demonstrates that it is actually the first known Creole literary anthology, containing variations on works including the earliest published Creole poem, "Lisette quitt� la plaine," from mid-eighteenth century Saint-Domingue (Haiti). Since the anthology attests to the circulation and transformation of early Creole texts, it puts their presumed b�k� (white Caribbean-born) authorial origins into question. I interpret tensions in racial and linguistic hierarchies in "Lisette" in relation to two conceptualizations of slavery and literary voice: postcolonial theories of colonial mimesis, and historical commentaries on the poetic productivity of non-white members of colonial society.

Duke Scholars

Author Deborah Jenson Romance Studies