Debate poetry was a medieval tradition characterized by an argument or discussion between two opposed parties. The issue of the debate might be a serious philosophical, theological, or moral tradition, or it might concern some question of COURTLY LOVE or of poetry itself. Some scholars have traced the roots of the debate form to the pastoral contest represented in the classical poets Theocritus and Virgil. But the most likely model for medieval debates was BOETHIUS’s extraordinarily popular CONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY, in which the allegorical figure of Lady Philosophy engages in a philosophical debate with the persona of Boethius himself—a dialogue form ultimately based on Plato.
The earliest type of debate poetry in the vernacular was the TENSO (discussion), a form popular among the Provençal TROUBADOURS. A famous tenso between GIRAUT DE BORNEIL and RAIMBAUT D’ORANGE saw the two troubadours debating the relative merits of the TROBAR CLUS, or difficult style of poetry, against the TROBAR LEU, or easy style of troubadour lyric. Other related forms in Provençal were the partimen (a philosophical debate) and the jeu parti (a love debate).
At the same time, there were secular Latin poems in a debate format, and in the 12th century, St. BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX and Hugo of Saint Victor composed a debate among the four “daughters of God”—Peace and Righteousness, Justice and Mercy—who argue among themselves the fate of sinful humankind. This theme was to become popular in later medieval MORALITY PLAYS.
This sort of ALLEGORY was not uncommon in the popular French form of the 12th and 13th centuries, the débat. Here the two participants might be people but might also be birds or animals who are representative, frequently personifications, of opposed qualities. The débat might concern love or morality, or might be political allegory or satire.Generally the debate was inconclusive, and in the end was submitted to a third party, often a prince, though sometimes a fictitious judge or the audience itself as arbitrator.
In England, debate poems tended to be focused on themes of morality and religion, and debate poems might take the form of an allegorical argument between Body and Soul or between Virtues and Vices or Reason and Will. The 14th-century poem in ALLITERATIVE VERSEWINNER ANDWASTER is a political satire in which the merits of accumulating and spending are weighed. But the earliest and best known of MIDDLE ENGLISH debate poems is the 13th-century The OWL AND THE NIGHTINGALE, in which the two birds may represent two kinds of poetry—didactic religious and secular love poetry— and argue about the benefits they bring to humanity. Bird debates became particularly popular in England in the following two centuries, including John CLANVOWE’s The Thrush and the Nightingale and CHAUCER’s PARLIAMENT OF FOWLS—such a “parliament” was a debate among more than two participants, like the earlier Middle English PARLIAMENT OF THE THREE AGES. Chaucer’s purest debate poem is his short poem Fortune, a debate of alternating BALLADES spoken by a “Plaintiff ” and the allegorical figure of Fortune, whose themes are drawn directly from the second book of Boethius’s Consolation. In the end of Fortune, the combatants (as in the French débat) submit their case to a group of unnamed “Princes,” in what seems to be a direct appeal by the poet for remuneration.
Thus the debate poem was extremely flexible, could take many forms, and was used for many purposes across a number of countries in the later Middle Ages,No doubt this flexibility helped make the form as popular as it was.
Bibliography
■ Altmann, Barbara K. The Love Debate Poems of Christine de Pizan. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1998.
■ Bossy, Michel-André, ed. and trans. Medieval Debate Poetry: Vernacular Works. New York: Garland, 1987.
■ Conlee, John W.Middle English Debate Poetry: A Critical Anthology. East Lansing, Mich.: Colleagues Press, 1991.
■ Reed, Thomas L., Jr.Middle English Debate Poetry and the Aesthetics of Irresolution. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1990.