Limitations of New Criticism in Carol Ann Duffy’s Little Red Cap

Literature emerges from an amalgamation of external influence, literary form, readership, and authorial intent (Tyson 136). New Criticism asserts that only analysis of concrete and specific examples existing within the text can accurately assess literary work (135). New Criticism also discounts authorial agency and cultural force that informs construction of a text. New Critics believe sources of external evidence produce intentional fallacy, the flawed acceptance of the author’s intention as the text’s true meaning, and affective fallacy, the confusion of the text with the emotions it produces (136-37). This literary lens indicates that author’s intent, emotions prompted, and culture’s external influences result in chaos if used to assess literature (137). However, in Carol Ann Duffy’s “Little Red Cap”, these omitted factors contrarily aim to reinforce complexity and wholeness unachieved by New Criticism’s limited assessment of “formal elements” (137). Due to New Criticism’s focus on objective form and exclusion of outside influences such as authorship, readership, and culture, New Criticism fails to accurately assess Duffy’s “Little Red Cap”, thus showing the critique’s limitations as a universally applicable lens.

Rejection of the author’s hand in their own work demonstrates New Criticism’s purposeful ignorance towards the sole reason for the literary work’s creation: the author. The biographical nature of “Little Red Cap” provides the reader with the ability to analyze the poem on a level that surpasses basic symbolism by injecting authenticity into the text. Duffy confirms the poem is biographical, stating, “Little Red Cap is a version of me … it’s based on my own first love, first relationship” (Duffy 2005). By including th...

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...cism’s adherence to objectivity fails to correctly analyze “Little Red Cap” due to the prominence of external, biographical, and cultural circumstances in the poem. Duffy’s poem legitimizes the utility of biographical subtext because of how effectively it enriches the text. New Criticism’s categorical rejection of the external reference of “Little Red Riding Hood” only aims to revoke the irony essential to the poem. Symbolism that lacks cultural subjectivity, as shown by Duffy’s poem, is extremely limiting and results in misinterpretation of symbols. By discarding New Criticism’s rejection of external influence, “Little Red Cap” can be accurately represented as a rich, symbolic and relevant text. Carol Ann Duffy’s poem “Little Red Cap” effectively exposes New Criticism’s limitations and helps propose that critical literary lenses may not be universally applicable.