The French Creoles of Trinidad and the Limits of the Francophone

This article is framed by the argument that, for all its justified condemnation of the closed nature of traditional French studies, the realm of Francophone studies constructs its own barriers and its own conventions of what constitutes Francophone writing. The influence of postcolonial theory on the field, it is argued, has focused interest almost exclusively on the literature of the colonized and the repressed in neocolonial and postcolonial situations. The influence of conventional French studies has, moreover, led most Francophone scholars to work on areas where France and French language retain an important presence. While not denying the necessity of this dual focus, the article proposes that attention be paid to areas where French colonial presence was interrupted or subsumed by that of another colonial power. The body of the article considers the history and cultural legacy of the French Creoles of Trinidad as an example of a Francophone group that wielded considerable influence in the nineteenth century, but which has now all but disappeared. The analysis leads to the conclusion that the study of such forgotten pockets of Francophone literature is one way of ensuring a creative discordance within the realm of Francophone studies.