Note 5 — Chapter I · : The Sources of Spanish Romance

“On the whole,” says Professor Saintsbury, “the ease, accomplishment, and, within certain strict limits, variety of the form, are more remarkable than any intensity or volume of passion or of thought” (Flourishing of Romance and Rise of Allegory, pp. 368–369). He further remarks that the Provençal rule “is a rule of ‘minor poetry,’ accomplished, scholarly, agreeable, but rarely rising out of minority.”