Hippolyte, Dominique (1889–1967)

Dominique Hippolyte, (pseudonym, Pierre Breville; b. 4 August 1889; d. 8 April 1967), Haitian writer and lawyer. Hippolyte anticipated the themes of the Indigenist School. Besides nature and love, he demonstrated close knowledge of peasant beliefs. As a student, he acted in a play by Massillon Coicou and was deeply affected by the execution of the Coicou brothers in 1908. Patriotic disapproval of the U.S. occupation of Haiti (1915–1934) is to be found both in his poetry and in the drama Le forçat (1933). Hippolyte early introduced the poetry of the black American Countee Cullen in La revue indigène, helping to make the Harlem Renaissance known among Haitian intellectuals. He is the outstanding Haitian playwright of the first half of the twentieth century.

Hippolyte was trained in law and eventually was named bâtonnier of the attorneys in Port-au-Prince. He served at one time as a commissaire in the civil court. He headed the Haitian Commission of Intellectual Cooperation and the Alliance Française of Port-au-Prince. Laval University awarded him an honorary doctorate.

See alsoHaiti .

BIBLIOGRAPHY

F. Raphaël Berrou and Pradel Pompilus, Histoire de la littérature haïtienne illustrée par les textes, vol. 2 (1975), pp. 460-469, and vol. 3 (1977), pp. 424-441.

Robert Cornevin, Le théâtre haïtien des origines à nos jours (1973), pp. 132-135.

Naomi M. Garret, The Renaissance of Haitian Poetry (1963), pp. 47-48.

Dominique Hippolyte, Jours de gloire (theater; with Luc Grimard, 1917).

Dominique Hippolyte, Quand elle aime (theater, 1918).

Dominique Hippolyte, Le baiser de l'aïeul (theater, 1924).

Dominique Hippolyte, La route ensoleillée (poetry, 1927).

Dominique Hippolyte, Tocaye (theater, 1940).

Dominique Hippolyte, Anacaona (theater, with Frédéric Burr-Reynaud, 1941)

Dominique Hippolyte, Le torrent (theater, with Placide David, 1965).

                                      Carrol F. Coates