The popular folk literature is one of the most important sections of popular traditions and the type of popular literary creation. It has a lot of names such as : oral literature, verbal art, and or expressionist literature. It has identified some of the criteria that distinguish it : they are originality, collective and realism, and overlap with other branches of the people's traditions like beliefs and folk customs. It extends some popular Arts to its long roots as the popular ancient Egyptians.
The standard characteristic of literature for popular linguistic standard (slang), the standard channel for transforming (oral novel), the authoring standard (collective and anonymity individual author), although the original singles for popular literature only that the individual creator doesn't live a self life away from the total group. But the criteria of lively, continuity and selection (Adage), they are made through property trading and context. Then finally the psychological standard (the expression of the conscience and cychology of the people).
The characteristics that distinguish popular texts in its unique technical style as we find in the traditional beginning and the end of the tale (Hadota) in sighting the popular biography.
Then comes redundancy an top of stylistic properties, where the popular literature is formed technically to facilitate keeping it in memory and making it easier for the audience in telling and chanting it on his listeners to follow because it is compiled to be told and listened not to be read.
As well as feature parallel between poetry division as in Mawal and colloquial. The popular literature has specific functions as cultural job and the aesthetic and nationalism job, which keeps the heritage of the group and glorifies its heroes, as well as utilitarian function that means technical sense of fun, and then finally adding any explanatory interpretation of phenomena.
The topics of popular literature or arena limits has varied opinions around, but we can include under the popular literature of all forms of traditional spoken folk , whether poetry or prose provided it is described by repeated patterns, its main sections, legends, folk tales of all kinds, serial popular and folk songs according to different events, environments, puzzles, ideals, different kinds of folk poetry and dramatic popular skits…..etc.