Literature and orality in Haiti: Georges Castera's Creole poetry

Abstract

In this article we propose an approach to the relationship between orality and literature in Haiti, focusing on the poetic production in Creole by Georges Castera. We first seek to situate the historical context in which interest in folklore in Brazil and Haiti emerges, that of the 1920s, in relation to the search for a national expression in culture and literature. We emphasize in this process the importance of ethnography. We then address this issue in Haiti, where the relationship between orality and writing is puts it in terms of opposition between Creole and French, between Haitian culture and French culture. Finally, we propose a reading of poetry in Creole by Georges Castera motivated by the project ofto create modern poetry in Creole and to give this language a statute of  poetic writing.