Les Phares haïtiens: 19th-Century Haitian Luminaries in Translation
This student-initiated repository seeks to make the voices of nineteenth-century Haitian poets accessible to a wider audience through translation. Informed by Lawrence Venuti’s writings about the translator's power to enhance visibility, these translations draw attention to poems originally published in the pages of nineteenth-century Haitian literary journals such as L’Abeille haytienne and L’Union or anthologized in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by Louis Morpeau and Raphaël Berrou. Each poem is linked to a poet biography, a facing page translation, and an audio recording of that poem in the original French.
Recommended Reading and Select Bibliography
REPOSITORY HISTORY
This site was developed by students enrolled in a nineteenth-century French poetry and translation class taught by Dr. Elizabeth Emery at Montclair State University in spring 2022. Their initial goal was to improve the accessibility of these poems by producing English-language texts that mapped closely to the originals. Today, the editorial board seeks to expand the preliminary repository by adding more translations and recordings (notably into and from Haitian Kreyòl). The community should feel free to propose contributions. Some possibilities can be consulted on this document. For more information, please contact Dr. Emery (emerye at montclair.edu).
The repository's title was inspired by “Les Phares,” the sixth poem in Charles Baudelaire’s 1857 edition of Les Fleurs du Mal, which celebrates artists as “beacons” of creative expression, the “fierce cry” of their innovative work resounding through the ages and lighting the way for new generations of artists. Baudelaire dreamed of traveling to Haiti, perhaps inspired by Jeanne Duval, who spent the first twenty years of her life in Haiti. Translators did much to promote Baudelaire's reputation in the English-speaking world and we hope that the translations contained in this repository may help the words of poets Coriolan Ardouin, Ignace Nau, Virginie Sampeur, and others illuminate the world of twenty-first century readers.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Warm thanks to Dr. Pascale LaFountain for suggesting the project title, to Dr. Chelsea Stieber for her encouragement and bibliographic suggestions, to Dr. Jasmine Claude Narcisse for valuable feedback, to Dr. Kathleen Loysen for tips and insights, and to Emeline Frix and Gabriela Rincon for their initial editorial work.
EDITORIAL BOARD
Anastasia Bonney, Elizabeth Emery, Guervens Guermilus, Michelle Kiefer, Bertange Severe, Daphney Vastey, Laetitia Zicchinella