Supernatural Stories refer to the fictions about gods and spirits from the period from 206BC-589AD, which were mostly from necromancers and wizards.
After the Han Dynasty (206BC-220AD), Taoism and Buddhism as well as superstitious thoughts prevailed in the society, leading to the emergence of stories about spirits. The wordZhiguai(supernatural) was used in the titles of many works at that time.
Of all the supernatural stories,Records of Spirits(Sou Shen Ji) by Gan Bao represents the highest achievement of the genre at that time. The extant edition was reedited in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) with a total of 20 volumes, and some of them are doubted not to be written by Gan Bao. The book included many stories about spirits, as well as beautiful mythologies and folklores. Many of them were very popular among the people and some were adapted into operas and colloquial novels.
Complete natural stories also includedLater Records of Spirits(Sou Shen Hou Ji) by Tao Yuanming andThe Gleaning(Shi Yi Ji) by Wang Jia, etc. Most of other works were lost, and a small part of scattered stories were collected intoRediscovering Ancient Lost Novels.
However, people at that time did not regard the form as fictions. For instance, in the preface toRecords of Spirits(Sou Shen Ji), Gan Bao said that he wrote this book for the purpose of reasoning the substantial existence of spirits. Therefore, people at that time read them as history books. Today, Supernatural Stories are categorized as fictions in general. On the one hand, it referred to the taxonomy of bibliography in the Song Dynasty (960-1279); on the other hand, it contributed to the development of Chinese novels. The Supernatural Stories bred the emergence of Saga Novels in the Tang Dynasty (618-907), which marked the maturation of Chinese novels.
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