In the world of literary criticism, the traditional and New Critics approach, are the two basic schools in which the field focuses and draws from. The definitions, focuses, contrasts and limitations between the traditional approach and the New Critics are presented according to Wilfred L. Guerin’s text, A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature.

The traditional approach is explained by Richard D. Altick in “that ‘almost every literary work is attended by a host of outside circumstances which, once we expose and explore them, suffuse it with additional meaning’” (24). This is a broader view of the traditional approach, most believe that the literature is “of secondary importance,” and that it only illustrates the author and the world surrounding the art, when it was created (16). The traditional approach focuses on textual criticism, historical-biographical and moral-philosophical aspects that are represented within the literature and around the literature’s creation.

Textual criticism is meant to establish the “authentic text, or the ‘text which the author intended’” (18). It wants to get down to the original manuscript, so that the author’s meaning can truly be examined. Literary works go through many revisions and altercations, by not only the author, but sometimes by editors and printers, sometimes only changing one word but ending up changing the whole meaning of the artwork. For example, In “To His Coy Mistress” the word “dew” is not the word in which Marvell first used in his poem, but one that was inserted into the poem sometime around or in the eighteenth century. In earlier texts the word was presented as “glew,” which means “glow,” but was changed to “dew” for some unknown reason, and has been printed that way since, changing the meaning of that line dramatically.

Other than focusing on the meaning of the work, the traditional approach examines the historical-biographical aspect of the literature. Historical-biographical considerations are used to create “the full impact of [the] story, aesthetically and intellectually” (54). It “sees a literary work chiefly, if not exclusively, as a reflection of its author’s life and times or the life and times of the characters in the work” (22). It is obviously useful to know something of the puritan times and Hawthorne’s biography to truly get the meaning and depth of “Young Goodman Brown.” In using the historical-biographical aspects of “Young Goodman Brown,” the reader may learn something about the puritan times, or reveal a conflict or internal meaning of the work pertaining to Hawthorne’s life.

Along with the historical-biographical aspect there is the moral-philosophical aspect. Critics who use this aspect believe “that the larger function of literature is to teach morality and to probe philosophical issues” (25). Like the historical aspect, “they would interpret literature within a context of the philosophical thought of a period or group” (25). Examples of this type of criticism is the acknowledgment that Marvell creates the “theme of carpe diem” while Hawthorne dwells on the evil of mankind.

When using the New Critics or formalist approach the determination of carpe diem or the evil of mankind would not come from outside sources, but from strictly within the text. The New Critics believed in using the text and only the text leaving it in its “organic form” (83). This new approach rebelled against bringing in any outside information, because it would only spoil the literature as a piece of artwork. They stress becoming a close and intensive reader, paying attention to “structure, shape, interplay, interrelationships, denotations and connotations, contexts, images, symbols, repeated details, climax...denouement, balances and tensions, rhythms and rhymes...sounds...the speaker’s apparent voice, a single line--or even a word--set off all by itself” (76). One is supposed to find these pieces of the puzzle by observing the literature as one would observe a room that new to them, creating a list of things that catch the eye and intrigue the mind (75). An example of the formalist approach is the attention given to Faith’s pink ribbons in “Young Goodman Brown.” A New Critic approach would analyze the pattern, color, interrelationships, and overall meaning of those ribbons by using only the evidence given within the text. The purpose of the formalist approach is to find the internal meaning of the work, without the help of history books, biographies, moral doctrine or philosophy texts.

The two approaches of criticism examined here, traditional and formalist, are very contradicting and restricting in their purest forms. While the traditional approach focuses on using the literature to study external sources, the formalist approach excludes all external sources and focuses only on the literature. This may or may not create a different literary conclusion in the meaning of the text. Restricting oneself to either external sources or internal context may inhibit the critic from understanding, possibly, what the author truly meant to say. Traditional criticism in this way cuts out the pleasurable quality of the literature, the intricacies of the literature, and restricts the focus of the literature to biographical and historical facts. New Criticism also limits itself in such a way that it does not take into account historical and biographical aspects. Understanding some of Hawthorne’s biography and historical facts of puritan times may be useful to know when analyzing “Young Goodman Brown” but under the pure form of New Criticism they must be ignored. Traditional approach emphasizes close reading to detect textual changes and even suggests tracking down original manuscripts in order to understand the author’s true meaning. New critics base their entire critical approach in close reading but not for finding errors within the text but analyzing the text before them and only those words and their meanings. While traditional critics focus on the meanings of the word as they were when they were written and intended, New Critics use many words to describe words such as paradox, imagery, hyperbole, and so on.

There are many good and bad aspects towards the pure forms of traditional and formalist criticism. Many critics have created an equilibrium between the two, enhancing the overall meaning and complexity of literature. Traditionalists use historical, biographical, moral, and philosophical facts to enhance their comprehension of the literature or use the literature to understand the facts. New Critics exclude all outside facts and concentrate only on the text in front of them, creating a collage of symbols, patterns, and images that the traditional critic may miss. In creating a total understanding of the reading, one must observe both the outside forces and the internal patterns as the author of the literature must have done when they created it.