Abstract

In his composition of the unique epic, sometimes considered as one single novel, the great scholar of Tous has successfully employed a wide range of discourse varieties including dialogue and debate. Although the debates in his work are by no means comparable to dialogues regarding frequency and stylistic features, this paper intends to examine the role of debate in Shahnameh through analyzing a sample of tokens. To this end, initially, the concept and origin of debate is defined and revisited according to the pre Islamic literary texts. Then, 'Mani & Moubed' and ' Moubed & Mazdak', as two well-known debates of Shahnameh, will be analyzed. The analysis reveals that the debates of Shahnameh are drastically different from the five categories of debate utilized in Asadi Tousi's composition of lyric verses and youth remembering odes as well as the Mathnavis of the succeeding centuries. Indeed, Ferdowsi attempted to portray the undemocratic religious atmosphere of Moubedan age, not tolerating any opposite voices, through these debates. Meanwhile, he meticulously implies that these styles are for the typically undemocratic cultures and societies while dialogues are characteristic of democratic societies.