Abstract: The presence of Mérat as a “visionary” in the letter to Demeny of 15 May 1871 has always been somewhat awkward for critics. The latter seems in effect to be the archetypal Parnassian, his poetry purely formalist. But his collection Les Chimères is marked by the affirmation of a “materialist future” which is also found in Rimbaud’s letter. And his love poetry, notably L’Idole, speaks truthfully of sex. These are all reasons to make of him a “visionary”, in the sense this word had in the context of the nineteenth century.
