Further Insight Into Rimbaud and Verlaine's Possible Seats at the Panthéon

At the New York Times, Antonella Francini weighs in on the debates about whether Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud should be included in the Panthéon, a move supporters argue would help fight homophobia. "Thousands of people have signed the petition, which calls the poets 'the French Oscar Wildes,' including Culture Minister Roselyne Bachelot and several of her predecessors, as well as the writer Annie Ernaux and Agnès B, the fashion designer," Francini writes. Further: 

“Rimbaud has a rightful place as an anti-establishment figure because France accepts dissent, blasphemy and criticism, and it even values it,” said Frédéric Martel, a journalist and author of “The Pink and the Black, Homosexuals in France since 1968,” who organized the petition.

But the idea has run into stiff resistance from disparate quarters. Some opponents have made overtly anti-gay arguments. But more say that other factors make the poets unsuitable as national icons, or that the petition reduces them to their affair, overshadowing their work.

Continue reading at the New York Times.