The Song dynasty was the heyday of the shihua genre.
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history
The genre was launched by Ouyang Xiu's 《六一诗话》 in the 11th century - short, often anecdotal jottings about poems, poets, and lines worth remembering. It became one of the dominant ways Chinese literati 'reviewed' poetry, peaking in the Song dynasty.
culture
A second meaning is the Tang-Song 'shihua' performance genre that mixed spoken prose with sung verse - the surviving 《大唐三藏取经诗话》 is a Tang Sanzang/Xuanzang scripture-fetching tale that prefigures Journey to the West 西游记.
