The image of the Trung Sisters in Vietnamese literature until the mid-20th century: the unfolding of national and personal discourses

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Introduction

The Trưng Sisters are enduring historical figures in Vietnamese history and culture. Since the formation of the Vietnamese state in the early tenth century, they have appeared widely across literary genres. In the twentieth century, their image became especially prominent in both literature and popular culture, with numerous texts and stage scripts attracting broad public attention. This article examines the enduring appeal of the Trưng Sisters in Vietnamese literature, particularly in modern times, by analyzing how their reception developed alongside two interrelated discourses: national discourse and personal discourse.

Specialized literary studies on the Trưng Sisters remain limited. Phạm Lan Oanh [2010] focuses mainly on local worship practices. Nguyễn Chí Bền and Phạm Lan Oanh’s study [2005] explores how the Sisters were transformed into revered figures through processes of historicization, mythologization, and localization, highlighting their role not only as heroic figures but also as protective deities linked to agricultural prosperity and national stability. From a cultural perspective, Nguyễn Bích Ngọc [2009] provides the most comprehensive compilation of materials related to the Trưng Sisters, covering legends, festivals, and literary works, though it is primarily documentary in nature. One of the most substantial studies on the Trưng Sisters in Vietnamese literature is Nguyễn Lê Vân An’s undergraduate thesis, The Heroic Figures of the Trưng Sisters and Lady Triệu in Vietnamese Literary History from the Perspective of Reception Theory [2020]. Drawing on reception theory, the thesis examines representations of the Trưng Sisters and Lady Triệu across literary genres and historical periods. Building on this foundation, the present article approaches the Trưng Sisters as a discursive formation and explores the transformation of their image in relation to broader ideological, national, and gender frameworks in modern Vietnamese literature.

This study examines representations of the Trưng Sisters in Vietnamese literature up to the mid-twentieth century from the perspective of discourse theory, emphasizing historical change. National discourse and personal discourse are treated as two central, interrelated frameworks that shape these representations, operating in parallel while intersecting at key historical moments. Following Michel Foucault, discourse is understood not as a neutral reflection of reality but as a regulated practice shaped by power relations, determining who may speak, what may be said, and how it may be articulated. From this perspective, the evolution of the Trưng Sisters’ image in Vietnamese literature up to 1945 is examined as a process structured by discourses of the nation and the individual.

The Trưng Sisters in History and the Evolution of National Discourse

The Trưng Sisters (Hai Bà Trưng 二徵夫人) refer to Trưng Trắc (徵側) and Trưng Nhị (徵貳). The earliest records of the sisters appear in Chinese historical texts such as Li Daoyuan’s “Commentary on the Water Classic” (Northern Wei) and Fan Ye’s “Book of the Later Han” (Song). These sources describe the sisters as daughters of a Lạc lord in Mê Linh who led an uprising in 40 CE after the execution of Trưng Trắc’s husband, Thi Sách, by the Han official Su Ding. Supported by Lạc lords and people from Giao Chỉ, Cửu Chân, Nhật Nam, and Hợp Phố, they captured sixty-five fortresses, proclaimed themselves rulers, and were eventually defeated by Ma Yuan in 42 CE.

The earliest Vietnamese historical work, Lê Văn Hưu’s “Đại Việt sử ký” (1272), is no longer extant, but later chronicles—most notably “Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư” (1479), compiled during the reign of Lê Thánh Tông—preserve accounts of the Trưng Sisters. Written in a period marked by the consolidation of a Confucian state, medieval historical texts such as “Đại Việt sử lược”, “Việt sử tiêu án”, and “Khâm định Việt sử thông giám cương mục” consistently portray the Trưng Sisters as heroic figures and moral exemplars for later generations. The available records, despite some variations, uniformly praise the Trưng Sisters as heroes and exemplary figures. The following are excerpts from Đại Việt Sử Ký Toàn Thư: “She reigned for 3 years. The king was courageous, chased Su Ding away, established a nation, proclaimed herself king, but being a female ruler, she could not achieve reconstruction” [Ngô Sĩ Liên 2006: 108]. The historical accounts recorded in “Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư” consistently reflect historians’ admiration for the Trưng Sisters as heroic and exemplary figures. Lê Văn Hưu’s well-known commentary notes that for over a thousand years men “only knew how to bow down and surrender” [Ngô Sĩ Liên 2006: 107] to the North, without shame before the Trưng Sisters, who were women. This comparison reveals a distinctly gendered logic in Confucian historiography, in which the sisters are measured against male figures and their achievements are mobilized to reproach men who failed to defend the nation. Such a mode of evaluation was inseparable from the nature of state historiography: as official history was written under royal commission, it necessarily reflected the ideological perspective of the ruling dynasties. Within this framework, the Trưng Sisters functioned as a conventional national discourse, embodying Vietnamese national identity and the moral authority of the national spirit. Although some scholars have suggested that early Vietnamese society may have retained traces of matriarchy or afforded women a relatively high social status [Taylor 1983: 30-31], medieval historiography consistently interpreted the Trưng Sisters through a Confucian lens shaped by prevailing gender norms and political values.

The inclusion of the Trưng Sisters in official history reflects an affirmation by Confucian historians serving Vietnamese dynasties. As Lê Văn Hưu’s “Đại Việt sử ký” is no longer extant, the earliest relatively complete accounts are found in historical tales, most notably “Việt điện u linh tập” by Lý Tế Xuyên (1329). The entry on the Trưng Sisters follows Chinese and later Vietnamese records in recounting their uprising and death, while introducing miraculous elements that underscore their posthumous sanctity and royal recognition. Although there is no clear evidence that the work was compiled under direct royal commission, its author was a court official with access to state archives, and the collection reflects moral and political criteria in its selection of deities. A similar portrayal appears in “Lĩnh Nam chích quái” by Vũ Quỳnh and Kiều Phú, a fifteenth-century compilation of folk tales that presents a narrative of the Trưng Sisters nearly identical to that in “Việt điện u linh tập”. Both works reflect a broader cultural effort to construct Vietnamese national identity through the deification of national heroes. Under the Lý and Trần dynasties, the Trưng Sisters were transformed into protective deities, illustrating the medieval practice of combining divine authority with royal authority while maintaining the supremacy of royal power. This narrative pattern continued in later works such as “Thiên Nam vân lục liệt truyện”, indicating the sustained development of national discourse.

The fifteenth century marked a period characterized by the consolidation of Confucianism, which reached its peak during the reign of Lê Thánh Tông, when the state sought to establish an ideal Confucian order. From this period onward, literature increasingly functioned as a vehicle for transmitting Confucian moral values. Within this context, historical poetry emerged as a mainstream Confucian genre, closely aligned with official historiography and rarely diverging from state discourse. Poems on the Trưng Sisters praise them according to Confucian moral standards, as illustrated in the line “While there is water, there are mountains, there are temples and shrines” [Bùi Văn Nguyên 2000: 428], which situates Trưng Trắc firmly within a sacred national landscape. A similar emphasis appears in Đặng Minh Bích’s fifteenth–sixteenth-century verse, which declares that “Every woman, young or old, is a hero” [Bùi Văn Nguyên 2000: 817], extending female heroism from an exceptional figure to a broader moral ideal. In historical poetry such as “Thoát hiên vịnh sử”, Trưng Trắc is categorized as a “Female Lord” under the title “Trưng Vương” [Đặng Minh Khiêm 2016: 293], highlighting both her exceptional status and the gendered nature of such praise. This perspective is encapsulated in the rhetorical question “How many levels of heroism could a woman achieve like Lady Trưng?”, which simultaneously celebrates her heroism and underscores its perceived extraordinariness for a woman in a Confucian moral order. Through such verses, historical poets constructed moral exemplars aligned with Confucian criteria, presenting female heroism as admirable yet implicitly marked by gender difference.

Historical verse drama (diễn ca lịch sử) is a genre of writing history in verse that became widespread from the sixteenth century. These works usually draw on two main sources: official histories (primarily Đại Việt sử ký toàn thư) and unofficial historical materials. At the same time, they convey a discourse that combines Confucian ethics with national concerns. In several historical verse dramas, the cause of the Trưng Sisters’ rebellion is explained primarily through the lens of marital loyalty, as expressed in verses emphasizing their vows and determination to avenge injustice [Nguyễn Tá Nhí 1997: 44]. The rebellion is thus often framed as Lady Trưng’s act of revenge for her husband, yet this personal motive is articulated alongside a growing awareness of “our country” and “our people,” reflecting an emerging national consciousness [Ibid: 46]. In this discourse, the idea of avenging the nation is frequently placed before avenging the family, as national restoration is presented as the foremost moral obligation [Nguyễn Thị Lâm 2001: 89].

In developing this national discourse, authors of historical verse dramas sometimes introduced creative elements and altered details found in official histories. A notable example appears in “Thiên Nam Ngữ Lục”, where the Trưng Sisters’ story is given a more conciliatory ending than the familiar tragic narrative. After proclaiming themselves queens, they are depicted as maintaining peace through submission, eventually dying of illness and ascending peacefully, a conclusion that may reflect the author’s idealized vision shaped by contemporary Nôm poetic conventions [Nguyễn Thị Lâm 2001: 96–97].

National discourse continued to evolve over the centuries and underwent a major transformation in the late nineteenth century, when Vietnam became a French colony. Colonization and Westernization brought profound social changes, particularly after World War I, as traditional society was reshaped toward a capitalist structure and new urban social groups emerged. In literature, the expansion of printing, publishing, and journalism, together with Western-style education, contributed to the formation of a literary market and a new reading public. A key transformation was the replacement of Chinese characters and Chữ Nôm by the Latin-based Quốc ngữ, while translation – from both French and Chinese – played a crucial role in the development of Vietnamese literature in the early twentieth century.

One of the central issues of this period was nationalism, which marked the formation of modern Vietnamese national consciousness, fundamentally different from medieval conceptions of the nation and the state. Scholars such as Trần Đình Hượu and Lê Chí Dũng have noted that patriotic ideas and notions of popular solidarity articulated by Confucian intellectuals exerted a strong emotional appeal, mobilizing people across social classes and communities who increasingly perceived themselves as collective masters of the country [1988: 21]. As McHale observes, these debates unfolded within a rapidly changing intellectual field in which Vietnamese writers adopted new social and political vocabularies to reconceptualize society, social hierarchy, gender relations, and the national past. They gradually moved away from Confucian classificatory frameworks toward more inclusive notions of the nation and the people, while experimenting with concepts better suited to modern ideas of social and economic equality. As a result, “the discursive field saw many voices contradicting each other, appealing to different intellectual masters” [McHale 2004: 69].

Under the impact of Western ideas of nationhood and the colonial context, Vietnamese intellectuals sought to reclaim national values and reinterpret the past to affirm a historically rooted national essence. In this process, Confucianism and Buddhism experienced revivals in the first half of the twentieth century, closely linked to nationalist and anticolonial concerns. These dynamics led to a surge of works on Vietnam’s pre-modern history, focusing on figures such as Phùng Hưng, Lý Nam Đế, Đinh Tiên Hoàng, Lê Đại Hành, Trần Hưng Đạo, and especially the Trưng Sisters and Lady Triệu. Many colonial-period works on the Trưng Sisters from the early twentieth century are still preserved at the National Library of Vietnam in Hanoi.

Historical poetry remained a prominent genre during this transitional period. Unlike medieval historical poetry, which was composed in Classical Chinese or Nôm and circulated in limited poetry collections, historical poetry in the early twentieth century was written in Quốc ngữ and widely published in newspapers, reaching a broader readership. Nam Phong magazine (1917–1934), one of the most influential Quốc ngữ journals of the time, published numerous historical poems, including a considerable body of works on the Trưng Sisters in various verse forms such as Tang-style poetry, lục bát, and song thất lục bát, including historical verse dramas. Some poems exhibited a clearer awareness of national identity, mentioning “nước ta” (our country,) such as "Giận đứa tham tàn quấy nước ta" (Angry at the greedy child who disturbs our country) by Vũ Khắc Tiệp [1921: 160], or referencing "giang sơn" (the country) and the nation's history, like "Ra tay cung kiếm em theo gót, Mở mặt giang sơn chị đứng đầu" (Drawing the bow and wielding the sword, following in the footsteps, Opening the face of the country, standing at the forefront) by Đỗ Khắc Sương [1924: 527].

Tản Đà, the most influential poet of this period, transformed the serious genre of historical poetry into a satirical form in his poem about the Trưng Sisters. In a playful manner, he wrote: “Throughout the country, for so long, they were like mothers, The Trưng Sisters surely had children in tow” [2002: 152]. Tản Đà wrote about the Trưng Sisters' story in a mischievous manner, imbued with a sense of desecration. However, like many other contemporary authors, Tản Đà, too, placed women in comparison with men, suggesting that women could achieve feats similar to men. This contrasts with pre-20th century period, with the notion that "even though they are women, they can accomplish what men do".

Until the First World War (1914–1918), tuồng remained the dominant theatrical form in the Central and Southern regions, while in the North it shared this position with chèo. After the reign of Tự Đức, however, the creation of new tuồng scripts declined sharply. Among the limited number of early twentieth-century scripts that survive—many original editions having been lost—the Trưng Sisters emerged as a particularly compelling subject. The most notable example is “Trưng nữ vương” by Phan Bội Châu. Written in 1911 during his most active revolutionary period, the play is regarded as the first tuồng work to enter the history of national resistance against foreign domination. Scholars have noted that it foregrounds ideals of national independence, unity, and collective resistance, articulating confidence in eventual victory. Although functioning primarily as political propaganda and showing limited artistic innovation, the work marked an important moment in the history of tuồng. Due to its restricted circulation, it was mainly transmitted orally in regions such as Nghệ An and Hà Tĩnh, yet it exerted a notable influence on intellectuals, young people, and the patriotic movement of the period.

In this play, Phan Bội Châu directly quotes lines from Đại Nam quốc sử diễn ca, drawing on a historical tradition imbued with symbolic weight. The central theme is national independence, reiterated through invocations of collective suffering and responsibility. Rather than reconstructing the past for its own sake, history is mobilized to articulate a modern national identity. This orientation is evident in Trưng Trắc’s response to her husband’s death, where personal grief is transformed into national resolve, as expressed in the line “Bows and arrows have replaced women’s scarves” [1967: 60]. The play concludes at the moment of the Trưng Sisters’ victory, offering a hopeful ending that may be read as Phan Bội Châu’s vision for the nation’s future.

In addition to “Trưng nữ vương”, Phan Bội Châu also addressed the Trưng Sisters in the historical verse drama “Việt Nam quốc sử bình diễn ca” (1927), a Nôm version of “Việt Nam quốc sử khảo”, whose Hán text was published in Japan in 1909. In this work, the Trưng Sisters are praised within a nationalist discourse largely continuous with earlier historical verse dramas, a style also evident in “Trưng vương lịch sử diễn ca” (1937) by Hoàng Thúc Hội. Other tuồng scripts on the Trưng Sisters include “Tuồng Trưng Trắc” by Huỳnh Thúc Kháng (performed in Côn Đảo prison), “Thù chồng nợ nước” by Hoàng Tăng Bí (1925), and “Nữ Trưng vương” by Đặng Thúc Liêng (1925). Despite differences in circulation, these plays consistently emphasize national pride, independence, and resistance to foreign domination. In “Thù chồng nợ nước”, although Thi Sách’s death triggers the rebellion, national obligation remains the dominant discourse: Trưng Trắc’s grief is acknowledged but subordinated to national duty, and vengeance is framed as revenge for the nation rather than the individual. The play culminates in the self-sacrifice of the Trưng Sisters, affirming the primacy of national survival over personal emotion. Some theatrical scripts are believed to have emerged through oral transmission in prisons, notably works by Nguyễn An Ninh and Huỳnh Thúc Kháng. “Hai Bà Trưng Tuồng Hát” (1928) by Nguyễn An Ninh belongs to spoken drama, a modern Western-derived genre. Retaining only historical names, the play reflects contemporary settings, language, and concerns, notably portraying Trưng Nhị as more progressive and modern-minded than Trưng Trắc: “I want the millions of Vietnamese people to worry about preserving, cultivating, and developing the land left by our forefathers, to toil and enjoy together like one family” [1928: 61].

Influenced by the translation of Chinese historical novels into Quốc ngữ, episodic historical fiction developed vigorously in the early twentieth century. Regarding the Trưng Sisters, only one such novel can be identified: “Hai Bà Đánh Giặc” by Nguyễn Tử Siêu. Written in the style of Chinese serialized fiction with twenty episodes, the work presents a vivid and contemporary narrative of the Trưng Sisters. Published in 1936 under the title “Lịch sử tiểu thuyết Hai bà đánh giặc” by Nhật Nam, the novel consists of 383 pages. As typical of the genre, the work focuses primarily on historical events rather than psychological depth. Thi Sách functions as the central character, and the narrative concentrates on the period before his death. The uprising is depicted as beginning prior to Thi Sách’s execution and is framed mainly as a national cause, with his death serving only as the final catalyst. This nationalist orientation is symbolically expressed through two white flags bearing the slogans “Repay the country, save the people” and “Revenge on enemies, wash away shame” [Nguyễn Tử Siêu 1936: 342]. The Trưng Sisters are not developed as psychologically complex characters. Trưng Trắc is portrayed largely through expressions of pain and hatred, while the ideological message is articulated through collective voices after victory, affirming national liberation. The narrative concludes with the Trưng Sisters’ suicide.

In the genre of modern short stories, a notable work on the Trưng Sisters is “Les lamentations de Trưng Trắc” (1922) by Nguyễn Ái Quốc, written in French and published in L’Humanité. Conceived as literature in the service of political struggle, the text directly supports the cause of national liberation. Through a fictional dream of King Khải Định’s visit to France, the author invokes the voices of the Trưng Sisters and other national heroes to criticize Khải Định’s collaboration with colonial power. Trưng Trắc appears first among these ancestors, speaking as a founder of the Southern land who expelled invaders and liberated the nation, and projecting hope toward a future of humanity and freedom.

The proliferation of images of the Trưng Sisters and other national heroes during this period reflects an intellectual desire to reaffirm national historical values. From its earliest formation, national discourse has remained central to narratives about the Trưng Sisters, evolving across Vietnamese history and reemerging at moments when society sought a discourse to address national concerns.

The Formation of Personal Discourse

The rise of the individual in Vietnamese literature can be traced back to the 16th century, when personal discourse began to develop alongside the dominant communal discourse. In representations of the Trưng Sisters, historical verse drama is often regarded as the initial genre through which personal discourse took shape. Within this genre, Thiên Nam Ngữ Lục, while still firmly embedded in communal and national concerns, started to foreground the feminine dimension of the Trưng Sisters by emphasizing both physical beauty and emotional depth. Their extraordinary appearance is suggested in the line “Different in disposition from the ordinary,/ Cloud-like hair, snowy back, fragrant essence of ivory,” [Nguyễn Thị Lâm 2001: 82], while Trưng Trắc’s inner world is revealed through her grief over her husband’s death: “Trắc mourned for her husband, a sorrow deep and endless” [Ibid: 88]. This sorrow is further elaborated through images of restrained yet enduring emotion, as conveyed in the lines “Rows of pearly tears streaming, / Pitying the time of regret, yet harboring resentment and anger” [Ibid: 88], where personal loss is articulated as an internal emotional struggle rather than immediately subsumed into collective or political discourse.

These depictions resonate with the motifs of tài tử giai nhân (talented scholars and beautiful women) that became increasingly widespread from the seventeenth century onward. Emerging in the late seventeenth century, Thiên Nam Ngữ Lục marks a transitional moment between the second and third periods of Vietnamese literature and represents the culmination of indigenous Nôm literary production, with genres largely rooted in sixteenth-century traditions. Unlike earlier works such as Việt Điện U Linh and Lĩnh Nam Chích Quái, which portrayed historical figures primarily as sacred or supernatural beings, Thiên Nam Ngữ Lục presents the Trưng Sisters from the perspective of ordinary people, emphasizing their human emotions and demonstrating a more advanced fictionalization of historical figures.

In the early 20th century, profound social transformations and the introduction of Western ideologies revitalized Vietnamese society. Among the most significant changes was the emergence of the individual self, influenced by Western thought, which began to take shape in Vietnamese literature during this period. This shift is vividly captured in Thi Nhân Việt Nam, marking the arrival of modern individual consciousness in Vietnamese literary discourse: “On the first day – who knows which day it was – the word 'self' appeared on the Vietnamese literary stage, causing a sensation” [Hoài Thanh, Hoài Chân 2000: 54]. This personal self emerged alongside “Thơ mới” (New Poetry) and the prose of the Tự Lực Văn Đoàn (Self-Reliant Literary Association), two major achievements of early modern Vietnamese literature that laid the foundation for later developments.

However, personal discourse in the early twentieth century appears to have begun not with entirely new literary forms, but through the adaptation of traditional medieval genres written in Quốc ngữ. Quốc Ngữ poetic tales continued the tradition of medieval Nôm narrative poetry. While no Nôm poetic tale about the Trưng Sisters from the medieval period has been identified, several Quốc Ngữ works on this theme emerged in the early twentieth century, most notably “Trưng Nữ Vương Tân Truyện” (1914) by Xuân Lan. Influenced by earlier Nôm narratives, the work foregrounds individual life and the desire for earthly conjugal happiness, opening with imagery modeled on the “tài tử giai nhân” tradition, as expressed in the line “Grace and virtue together, / Heroes and chaste women, both treasures in one house” [2014: 5]. The narrative also depicts the pain of Trưng Trắc after her husband’s death, presenting Bà Trưng from the perspective of an ordinary wife who experiences personal sorrow and emotional loss rather than solely as a heroic figure, a sentiment encapsulated in the line “Thinking that our commitment would last a lifetime.” [2015: 7] Nevertheless, the story ultimately remains centered on a female national hero, as “Trưng Nữ Vương Tân Truyện” reorients the personal narrative toward national discourse, concluding with the sisters’ self-sacrifice and their subsequent veneration as saints.

During the early twentieth century, within the medieval genre of historical poetic tales, signs of individual consciousness and an emerging awareness of femininity began to appear in representations of the Trưng Sisters alongside national discourse. Đạm Phương Nữ sử was a pioneering figure in this shift. While continuing the historical narrative tradition, she foregrounded the feminine dimension of the Trưng Sisters, moving beyond women defined through male-centered relationships to women situated within their own gendered experience, expressed in images such as “preserving the crest of waves with pale powder and rouge” [Đạm Phương Nữ 1921: 160]. This change may partly derive from Đạm Phương’s position as a female author writing about women, offering a perspective distinct from that of her male contemporaries. The increasing presence of female writers during this period also contributed to enriching representations of the Trưng Sisters with new sensibilities.

At the same time, authors began to distinguish the two sisters as separate individuals rather than treating them as a single collective figure, reflecting the emergence of personal identity in literature. While many writers focused on Trưng Trắc, others—notably Mai Đông nữ sĩ—turned their attention to Trưng Nhị. Although the perspective on Trưng Nhị did not differ substantially from that on the Trưng Sisters as a whole, her appearance as an individual figure for the first time is nevertheless significant.

The difference becomes truly apparent in the period of New Poetry with the famous poem "Trưng Nữ Vương" by Ngân Giang. This is a completely different modern poetry genre compared to medieval historical poetry. The focus of the poem is on femininity rather than the relationship of women with men. Finally, the most impressive aspect of the heroine in the poem was her femininity, loneliness and sadness, though she had reached the peak of glory:

Northern enemy troops are galloping on horses,
Golden armor and scarlet scarf freeze the elephant's head.
Oh, my dear, the lonely jade palace,
The moon tilts in the sky, casting a solitary glow [Hà Minh Đức 2000: 636]

Ngân Giang represents Thơ mới (New Poetry), a poetic form shaped by Western aesthetics in both content and form, emphasizing personal identity and everyday happiness rather than heroic ideals.

Beyond poetry, personal discourse in this period also found expression in the new genre of cải lương (reformed theater), which flourished in the 1920s–1930s. Several cải lương scripts on the Trưng Sisters have survived, including Nữ Trưng Vương (1925) by Đặng Thúc Liêng, Trưng Nữ Vương tân kịch (1929) by Trần Quang Hiển, Trưng Trắc Trưng Nhị (1936) by Cử Hoành Sơn, and Trưng nữ vương ca kịch (1945) by Sỹ Tiến.

Unlike traditional tuồng, cải lương is a narrative–lyrical form that emerged during a period of social transition marked by romantic sensibilities and aspirations for individual expression. Consequently, its representation of the Trưng Sisters moves away from heroic glorification toward the tragic dimensions of personal life, especially Trưng Trắc’s grief over her husband’s death. This sorrow is conveyed through extended laments foregrounding marital loyalty and emotional attachment, exemplified by the line describing a heart “dyed with loyalty, pledging mountains and oceans.” Before her death, Trưng Trắc addresses Trưng Nhị in deeply tragic terms, expressing an awareness of inevitable defeat and the enduring shame of subjugation under Ma Yuan. The work as a whole is thus permeated by a strong tragic sensibility, foregrounding personal suffering rather than collective heroism.

Taken together, representations of the Trưng Sisters reveal a gradual but significant shift from collective national discourse toward personal and gendered subjectivity. While early signs of individual consciousness emerged within historical verse genres from the seventeenth century, it was not until the early twentieth century—under the impact of Western notions of the self and the increasing presence of female authors—that personal discourse fully unfolded. In this later period, the Trưng Sisters were no longer represented solely as national heroines, but increasingly as women with inner lives marked by love, loss, loneliness, and emotional suffering, signaling a fundamental transformation in Vietnamese literary subjectivity.

Conclusion

Vietnamese literature has engaged extensively with the narrative of the Trưng Sisters across multiple genres from the fourteenth century to the modern period. This article has examined the interaction between two major discourses—national discourse and personal discourse—as reflected in literary representations of the Trưng Sisters over time. Shaped by historical change and literary development, these representations reveal a gradual transformation from heroic, sanctified figures to more humanized characters, and from an emphasis on community and nation to the emergence of personal narratives.

National discourse appeared earlier, beginning with Confucian historical records in the fourteenth century and evolving alongside shifting ideological values. In contrast, personal discourse emerged later, showing early signs in the sixteenth century and reaching fuller development only in the early twentieth century. The evolution of these discourses closely parallels the intellectual concerns of each era and the broader trajectory of Vietnamese literary history.

About the authors

Thu Hien Do

Author for correspondence.
Email: dohien@ussh.edu.vn
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-7743-8081

Ph.D., Lecturer, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Faculty of Literature

References

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