A quarterly specialized journal
The Message Of Folklore from Bahrain To The World

Types of folktale

Issue 34
Types of folktale

Idris Ibrahim Al Baridi
Saudi Arabia

A type of folk art, the folktale is a kind of narrative produced by the collective memory and passed down orally through the generations. The folktale is one of the most important means of cultural transmission among the generations; it is a social practice that transmits social ideas.

Because of the important role that the folktale plays in communities, this study looks at the folktale from the perspective of cultural criticism, treating it as a folk tradition that has survived even though it was not greatly respected. This is evidence of its strength and ability to capture the cultural and political aspects of our people.

The study has a theoretical focus, which tries to use cultural criticism to assess the folktale. It also has a procedural focus, which attempts to determine the typology of folktales in the book Folk Tales by Ali Maghawi.

The study is based on cultural criticism and its concepts, which consider folktales as intellectual activities. The study focuses on the book Folk Tales, (which consists of 52 stories over 169 pages), for several reasons, including the effort made to collect tales in different dialects and write them down in beautiful classic Arabic.

The study attempts to shed light on the cultural styles of the folktales. In his Introduction, the author mentions that he collected most of the tales from the southern region of Saudi Arabia. The tales are between 50 and 150 years old.

The writer decided to serve his community by conducting this research, given the limited number of studies in this field.

The paper attempts to address the cultural styles of the tales, the role of the Arab mentality in enhancing these styles, and their impacts on the habits and traditions of the Arab society.

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