Quand vous serez bien vieille, réflexions sur l’histoire d’une réception L’exemple du xix^e siècle

What makes a text “great” and secures its place in literary history? Using the hypothesis that the success of the famous sonnet for Hélène comes from its plasticity and the multiplicity of interpretations that it inspires, the article looks at the readings that could be made in the nineteenth century, the century when it received accolades from Sainte-Beuve to Nerval, from Baudelaire to François Coppée. Despite having in common a melancholy carpe diem approach, these readings are nonetheless strongly divergent.