Abstract
Patrick Labarthe, professor at the University of Zurich, has admirably identified Sainte-Beuve's critical method, a conversation with the dead, without systemic spirit or emphasis (nor the derision of Lucien's Dialogue des morts ), driven by the conviction, shared with Baudelaire, that modernity is marked by the seal of old age ("Les "Lundis" de Sainte-Beuve: une poétique vieillie?").
