much to do with the only point which is here of
importance, the distinctive character of Provencal literature, and the
influence of that literature upon the development of letters in France
generally. With a few words on these two points this chapter may be
concluded.

[Sidenote: Literary Relation of Provencal and French.]

[Sidenote: Defects of Provencal Literature.]

It may be regarded as not proven that any initial influence was
exercised over northern French literature by the literature of the
South, and more than this, it may be held to be unlikely that any such
influence was exerted. For in the first place all the more important
developments of the latter, the Epic, the Drama, the Fabliau, are
distinctly of northern birth, and either do not exist in Provencal at
all, or exist for the most part as imitations of northern originals.
With regard to lyric poetry the case is rather different. The earliest
existing lyrics of the North are somewhat later than the earliest songs
of the Troubadours, and no great lyrical variety or elegance is reached
until the Troubadours' work had, by means of Thibaut de Champagne and
others, had an opportunity of penetrating into northern France. On the
other hand, the forms which finished lyric adopted in the North are by
no means identical with those of the Troubadours. The scientific and
melodious figures of the Ballade, the Rondeau, the Chant-royal, the
Rondel, and the Villanelle, cannot by any ingenuity be deduced from
Canso or Balada, Retroensa or Breu-Doble. The Alba and the Pastorela
agree in subject with the Aubade and the Pastourelle, but have no
necessary or obvious connection of form. It would, however, be almost as
great a mistake to deny the influence of the spirit of Provencal
literature over French, as to regard the two as standing in the
position of mother and daughter. The Troubadours undoubtedly preceded
their Northern brethren in scrupulous attention to poetical form, and in
elaborate devices for ensuring such attention. They preceded them too in
recognising that quality in poetry for which there is perhaps no other
word than elegance. There can be little doubt that they sacrificed to
these two divinities, elegance and the formal limitation of verse,
matters almost equally if not more important. The motives of their poems
are few, and the treatment of those motives monotonous. Love, war, and
personal enmity, with a certain amount of more or less frigid didactics,
a