Deux révolutionnaires haïtiens dans les pièces d’Aimé Césaire: Toussaint l’ouverture et Henri Christophe

Authors : Ece Yassitepe Ayyildiz

Pages : 85-103

Doi:10.26650/LITERA2020-0012

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Publication Date : 2020-06-23

Article Type : Research

Abstract :Haiti, one of the old colonies of France, gained its freedom after long years of warfare against France and Spain. Black slaves fought for their own freedom, following their leader Toussaint Louverture and Henri Christophe who were important historical figures that played a key role to gain its independence in the early 1800s. Aimé Césaire, a Martinican playwright of the XXth century, wrote two different plays on these heroes: One of the plays, entitled And the dogs were silent (1958), tells us the life of Toussaint Louverture, called in this play as "The Rebel”, who shows us the system of the colonization of the New World, and the fight of the slaves against their masters. The second play, entitled The Tragedy of King Christophe (1963), presents Henri Christophe, who was the King of Haiti. He fought in the name of his people against the colonizers as well. By analyzing these two figures of the history of Haiti, we will observe the two plays of Aimé Césaire, entitled And the Dogs were silent and The Tragedy of King Christophe, in which we can see the battle of the two Haitian protagonists. We will examine these characters and these plays by referring to the concept of "tragedy” of Aristotle. Within the scope of Aristotle, the relationship between tragedy and history will guide this study by taking into consideration the historical base of these two plays. In this study, we will refer to the Memoirs of General Toussaint-Louverture, written by himself, a posthumous work that emphasizes the fight against the colonizers, and to Lamartine’s play Toussaint Louverture.
Keywords : Aimé Césaire, Toussaint Louverture, Henri Christophe, francophone theatre, Haitian revolution