Formal and textual Investigation of Debate Poems in the literature of Mamluk Era

Debate is an independent technique in literature that has been common among poets and writers in Arabic Literature for a long time. The literary genre which has been shaped based on imitating real debates is a hostile or friendly dialogue between parties of the debate who could be human, animal, plant, abstract concepts, natural and other elements. Since this genre exists very strikingly and impressively in prose and verse works of Mamluk era, it has been analyzed in analytical- descriptive method in both theoretical and comparative parts in that period in this study. In theoretical part, the literary genre is introduced and examples of verse and prose debates of that era are mentioned in comparative part. Findings of the study show that in verse debates, most of the dialogues are in general sense, among humans, frequently with a short form and without judgment. In contrast, in prose debates, most of the dialogues are in special sense and based on special rules and among inhuman elements with ethical, religious, praise or amusing aspects.