For an exposition of this text different even in the handling of iteration see Hugh of St. Victor in PL 175: 416. CHAPTER X POETIC ACHIEVEMENT IN VERNACULAR NOTE. This chapter indicates the poetic animating certain typical or outstanding literary developments in the vernaculars. Its intention is both historical review in this single aspect and suggestion of further study. Since it is thus selective and suggestive, not attempting the impossible appraisal of vernacular poetic as a whole, it offers no general list of references. Particular references will be found in place. A. LYRIC AND EPIC Lyric, earliest medieval poetic achievement in Latin, shows full development in the vernaculars. On this the widest Latin influence was of course the hymns. The most distinct and conspicuous vernacular poetic, that of the Provençal troubadours, is mainly a minute and elaborate stanza technic. The fame of troubadour virtuosity gave vogue in other vernaculars to metrical skill. This is its historical significance in the development of medieval lyric. Lyric in any time, however, has a short history. As in Greece, so again and again, having perfected its diction and its metric, it comes to its own and abides. For more than any other form of poetic it is timeless; not ancient, nor medieval, nor modern, but perennial. Germanic epic,[1] surviving as a strong influence in medieval English romance, persisted as a distinct poetic among the Scandinavians. In remote Iceland they developed an elaborate technic of verse epic, and later a distinct art of prose epic. Not even the troubadour poetic in the south is more detailed and elaborate than the epic doctrine of the _Skáldskaparmál_.[2] No medieval stories have more force of narrative directness than the prose sagas; and few have as much. In narrative stripped and stark the chief medieval author, perhaps, is Snorri Sturlasson. But in spite of Viking travels the Old Norse poetic of verse and of prose remained apart from medieval habit. Bounded by its own civilization, it was so little appropriated in the general medieval development of narrative that its recovery in modern times was as startling as that of the Etruscan sculpture at Perugia.