Classicism is a strange notion to use to define any period of troubadour composition. Is there any troubadour more ‘classical’ than Bernart de Ventadorn, considered here amongst the ‘early troubadours’? Are not all of the troubadours in fact united by their commitment to toiling on the margins, in a way which preserves them permanently from classicism? If Raimbaut d'Aurenga and Arnaut Daniel are classical troubadours, then one might as well say that Rimbaud too is a classical poet.

Yet despite the troubadours' determination to be extraordinary, in the etymological sense of the word, which might be expected to lead to their thorough-going individualism, one can still sense that there is a bond, a sense of common ground between those of them who followed in the footsteps of the great Limousin poet. Whence does this feeling stem? This is not the place to put in question the very notion of classicism; but let me nevertheless propose that this period, roughly the second half of the twelfth century, is classical because there existed a consensus on major ideas and attitudes whose validity the poets by and large acknowledged. Despite the growth of genres which were previously minor, the privileged medium of the lyric is the canso, whose sole subject is fin'amor and whose undisputed means of expression is the commonplace, the topos. Once these prerequisites have been observed, the rest is entirely at the poet's discretion and, as with all classicism, it is noteworthy that the strictness of the rules in no way shackles the freedom of genius: the higher the hurdle, the more prodigious the leap.