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Cenelles, Les   Reference library

The Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature

...Cenelles, Les . Les Cenelles , published in 1845 in New Orleans, was the first anthology of poetry by Americans of color. The title's use of the word “cenelles,” meaning holly or hawthorne berries, suggests that the volume contains the collected fruit of the Creole community that produced it. Edited by poet and educator Armand Lanusse ( 1812–1867 ), the collection features the work of seventeen New Orleans poets who, like Lanusse, were well-to-do “free people of color” ( gens de couleur libres ), a group with a unique cultural life distinct from that of...

Lanusse, Armand (1812–1867)   Reference library

The Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature

...Young People, Lovers of Literature , 1843 ) and to Les Cenelles ( 1845 ), a volume of poetry by Creoles of color, which Lanusse also edited. Ironically, Lanusse served in the Confederate army and initially opposed Union occupation of New Orleans. The increased oppression of blacks in postbellum years led him to despair of racial equality ever becoming a reality in the United States and drew him closer to less privileged blacks. Heavily influenced by French romanticism, Lanusse's poetry in Les Cenelles highlights love, death, and both the pleasures and...

Louisiana   Reference library

The New Oxford Companion to Literature in French

...in the anthology Les Cenelles ( 1845 ). Many novels were published, by writers including Alexandre Barde and Charles Testut , both émigrés from France, and particularly Alfred Mercier ( 1816–94 ), who with his brother Armand founded the Athénée Louisianais for the defence of French‐language culture. Mercier's most important work is L'Habitation Saint‐Ybars ( 1881 ), a plantation novel based on childhood memories. The last significant Louisiana novelist was Sidonie de la Houssaye, parts of whose uncompleted romanfleuve , Les Quarteronnes de la...

Séjour, Victor (1817–1874)   Reference library

The Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature

...and metaphors such as the persecution of Jews ( Diégarias , 1844 ; La tireuse de cartes , 1860 ) and class-based separatism in France ( Le martyre du coeur , 1858 ). Literary success came in 1841 with Le retour de Napoléon , a heroic ode celebrating the return of Napoleon's remains to Paris. Le retour de Napoléon was reprinted in the United States in 1845 by editor Armand Lanusse as part of Les Cenelles , the first anthology of poetry by African Americans. Séjour's run of twenty-five years as a leading figure in Parisian theater, during which...

Creole and Acadian Writing   Reference library

Thomas Bonner

The Oxford Companion to Women's Writing in the United States

...responsibilities of childbearing and housekeeping limited women's literary contributions through the mid-nineteenth century. In 1850 , Emilie Lejeune , a Creole, published in New Orleans retold stories, songs, and folklore, including those by people of African descent. Les Cenelles ( 1845 ), a collection of poems dedicated to the women of Louisiana by Creole men of color, is the first collection of poems by African-Americans on this continent, but no comparable volume by Creole women of color exists. Many Creole women, however, wrote memoirs, some of...

Francophone Poets of the U.S   Reference library

J. Kane

The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics (4 ed.)

...century, has been the choice of poets Debbie Clifton and Sybil Kein . Bibliography A. Lanusse , ed., Les Cenelles (1848) ; A. Fortier , “French Literature in Louisiana,” PMLA 2 (1886) ; R. L. Desdunes , Nos Hommes et Notre Histoire (1911) ; R. Caulfeild , The French Literature of Louisiana (1929) ; E. L. Tinker , Les Écrits de langue française en Louisiane au xixe siècle (1932) ; Creole Voices , ed. E. M. Coleman (1932) ; Cris sur le bayou , ed. B. J. Ancelet (1980) ; M. Fabre , “The New Orleans Press and French-Language Literature by...