The romance of our history

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Charles Gayarre was an attorney by trade, a politician by choice, and a historian partly because he found the story of Louisiana replete with poetry. To my mind, that is especially true of south Louisiana.
Gayarre is credited with writing the first complete history in Louisiana, He said he was drawn to the subject because there is so much romance to be found here, and discussed that at some length in a series of lectures that were published in 1848 as “Romance of the History of Louisiana” (New York: D. Appleton & Co.)
“I am prepared to show that her history is full of poetry of the highest order, and of the most varied nature,” he said. “I have studied the subject con amore (with love), and with much reverential enthusiasm, and I may say with such filial piety that it has grown upon my heart as well as upon my mind.”
History is most often about the narration of events, he said, but it is also useful “to point out the hidden sources of romance which spring from them — to show what materials they contain for the dramatist, the novelist, the poet, the painter, and for all the varied conceptions of the fine arts.”
When I read those sentiments, my second thought was about Longfellow and his tale of the Acadian dispersion, a story fit for poetry, painting, drama, dance, and myriad other forms of artistic expression. My first thought, I’m not sure why — perhaps triggered by the world “romance” — was of the late André Olivier, the St. Martinville raconteur who devoted much of his life to promoting Longfellow’s story and the Teche country. Olivier found “a concentration of romance and beauty not excelled ... anywhere in the nation” in and around his hometown.
The beauty of Louisiana is apparent, but writers and artists have also been inspired by our heroes and scoundrels and their follies and adventures from early times.
Louisiana’s first poet, Julian Poydras, wrote in French about Spanish Gov. Bernardo Galvez’s military campaign in support of the American Revolution. In fact, most, if not all, of Louisiana’s best work was in French during colonial times.
But after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, celebration of the culture and language of French Louisiana “seemed doomed to disappearance by the engulfing tide of Americanization,” in the words of Mathé Allain, the UL prof who edited a thick volume of essays on “Louisiana Literature and Literary Figures” (Lafayette: Center for Louisiana Studies, 2004).
That celebration might have been lost forever, but south Louisiana’s French renaissance that began in the late 1960s, brought with it a revival of poetry, prose, and music rooted “in the history, customs, and lore of the Cajuns and Black Creoles,” Allain notes. She said “the oral tradition of South Louisiana” kept alive much of the tradition which the modern renaissance builds upon.
Within that tradition of storytelling we find folk tales and dramatic stories of life in south Louisiana that were passed from generation to generation in forms that, although unwritten, were honed to something that could easily be called art.
Allain writes, “There is again today in Louisiana a native French literature ... (that) seeks its inspiration in the native culture and speaks its own language, with all its regional peculiarities.”
There are as many themes to this new literature as there are strings in the tapestry of life in Acadiana.
I can’t say that I am a part of that tradition, although the first piece of writing I ever sold was a poem (albeit not to a literary journal, but to Dog World magazine). I put the blame on simple geography. Wind-rippled grasses on the prairies, the moss-draped oaks of the Teche, the tangled beauty of the Atchafalaya Basin have all inspired for poets and painters for generations.
Indeed, I might have turned into an acclaimed poet if I had been reared on the beautiful Teche, or even the Mermentau. But the biggest tree in our yard was a moss-less chinaball, and the river that I knew as a youth was more to the west. My lyrical skills were just not up to finding a romantic allusion to birds getting drunk on fermenting chinaberries, or a decent rhyme for “Calcasieu,” as pretty as parts of that river might be.
A collection of Jim Bradshaw’s columns, Cajuns and Other Characters, is now available from Pelican Publishing. You can contact him at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.