The Hidden Space: Towards a Method for Reading the Story

The Arab folktale has not been thoroughly studied, but serious attempts have been made in Egyptian universities, led by Dr. Al-Gawhari and Dr. Nabila Ibrahim, and in Qatar through the Center for Popular Heritage of the Arab Gulf States. While this field is the root of all literary fields, including novels, stories, poetry, epics, and language, the Russian Formalists took notice of this field early on, establishing upon it the fields of language studies, storytelling, narratives, and travelogues, which have today become the foundation of both structuralism and linguistics.
As for the field of Arab culture, we have found only a small amount that does not match the scope and role of the folktale, the fantastic, and the fantastic in our Arab heritage, which has become a subject and a style for many philosophers and thinkers of Arab culture. Popular biographies have become a part of Arab culture alongside the poetry collection. Thus, despite the serious attempts made by Arab critics and others, we find that the field remains open to the study of the folktale. This humble attempt of mine aims to establish a framework for reading folk tales that can be called a methodology, but on the condition that it delves into other studies.