Wǔdàishǐ Pínghùa 五代史平話
Plain Tales of the Five Dynasties History
About the work
An anonymous Southern Song or Yuan-period vernacular prose narrative (pínghùa 平話) covering the history of the Five Dynasties period (907–960 CE). The text consists of separate sections for each of the five dynasties (Liang, Tang, Jin, Han, Zhou), each titled “[Dynasty] shǐ pínghùa” 史平話 (Plain Tale of the History of [Dynasty]), and is framed within a broad historical survey from the Yellow Emperor to the fall of the Tang. It is one of a small group of surviving Song-dynasty pínghùa texts alongside those in the Quán xiāng pínghuà wǔ zhǒng KR4k0036 and constitutes an important early document of Chinese vernacular historical fiction.
Tiyao
No tiyao found in source.
Abstract
The Wǔdàishǐ Pínghùa 五代史平話 represents the pínghùa genre applied to 10th-century Chinese history. Pínghùa (literally “plain speech”) were prosimetric entertainments originally associated with professional urban storytellers (shuōshū 說書 artists) in the Song capital, Bianjing (Kaifeng) and later Lin’an (Hangzhou). The genre combines vigorous vernacular prose narrative with embedded verse passages at chapter transitions. The Wǔdàishǐ pínghùa follows this format, mixing narrative of military campaigns and dynastic transitions with eulogistic verse.
The opening section (梁史平話) begins not with the Liang dynasty itself but with a broad historical survey tracing Chinese political history from the Yellow Emperor through the Huang Chao 黃巢 rebellion (875–884 CE), contextualizing the Five Dynasties as the aftermath of the Tang’s collapse. The prose style is energetic early vernacular Chinese, distinct from classical literary Chinese but predating the more fully developed vernacular of the later sāngyǎn erpài collections.
The Wǔdàishǐ pínghùa is a precursor to the later historical novel (yǎnyì 演義) genre and reflects the storytelling traditions that produced the early versions of Shuǐhǔ zhuàn 水滸傳 and Sānguó zhì yǎnyì 三國志演義. Its relationship to formal history (Ouyang Xiu’s Xīn Wǔdài shǐ, etc.) is mediated by the storytelling tradition rather than direct philological engagement.
Translations and research
- Idema, Wilt L., and Stephen West, tr. 2016. Records of the Three Kingdoms in Plain Language (Sanguozhi pinghua). Hackett Publishing. — English translation of a parallel pínghùa text, with discussion of the genre.
- Hanan, Patrick. 1973. The Chinese Short Story. Harvard UP. — contextualizes pínghùa within vernacular fiction history.
- Chen Dakang 陳大康. 1993. Tōngsú xiǎoshuō de lìshǐ guǐjì 通俗小说的历史轨迹. Hunan renmin. — traces vernacular fiction development.
Links
- Wikidata: no dedicated entry located