Pseudo-history: The Narrative Strategy of Jiangshi Pinghua in the Song and Yuan Dynasties

The jiangshi pinghua is a written literary genre that originated from the shuohua or storytelling,a form of folk art popular in the Song and the Yuan dynasties. It is an embryonic form of ancient popular novel. Because of the objective requirement of the themes and the conscious imitation of the creators,the jiangshi pinghua,different from the common popular novel in terms of narrative features,is distinctly characteristic of pseudo-history. This article focuses on how it borrows narrative time and narrative structure from traditional historical books. Through a double comparison with novel and historical texts,we find that the jiangshi pinghua employs the structure of the biographical and chronological forms of historical books,while following the clear theme and rich details of the shuohua.