Sanguozhi Pinghua
Sanguozhi Pinghua (simplified Chinese: 三国志平话; traditional Chinese: 三國志平話; pinyin: Sānguózhì Pínghuà), or Records of the Three Kingdoms in Plain Language, published anonymously in the Yuan dynasty, sometime between 1321 and 1323.[1] It contains stories of the Three Kingdoms period of Chinese history and was widely read until it was supplanted by the more detailed and forceful Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
Background
[edit]The novel was translated into English for the first time in 2016 by Wilt Idema and Stephen H. West. In the Introduction, aimed at the non-specialist, they explain that there had been a group of tales and legends on the events of Three Kingdoms period, define the pinghua form, and call this novel a "fast-paced tale" that was to remain the most popular account of the legends for the next two centries. It was printed, they explain, in a series that included other historical titles.[2]
The scholar Yoo Min-hyung puts the novel in the tradition of oral storytellers who did not read a text aloud but added improvisations to well-known incidents, though classifying this pinghua as a novel, not a script. Yoo compares this to the Korean Pansori tradition.[3]
References
[edit]- Anonymous (2016). Records of the Three Kingdoms in Plain Language. Translated by Idema, W. L.; West, Stephen H. Indianapolis, IN; Cambridge, MA: Hackett Publishing. ISBN 9781624665233.
- Idema, W. L. and Stephen H. West (2012). Battles, Betrayals, and Brotherhood : Early Chinese Plays on the Three Kingdoms. Indianapolis: Hackett Pub. Co. ISBN 9781603848138.
- Yoo, Min-hyung (2017), "Imported Heroes: A Comparative Study of the Novel Sanguozhi pinghua 三國志平話 and the Pansori Novel Hwayongdo 華容道" (PDF), The Review of Korean Studies, 20 (2): 33–52, doi:10.25024/review.2017.20.2.002
Notes
[edit]- ^ Plaks, Andrew (1987). The Four Masterworks of the Ming Novel: Ssu ta ch'i-shu. Princeton: Princeton University Press. pp. 368–369. ISBN 9780691628202.
- ^ Wilt Idema, Stephen H. West, "Introduction," Records of the Three Kingdoms in Plain Language," pp. xvii-xviii.
- ^ Yoo (2017), p. 36-39.