Literary merit

Literary merit is a high quality of writing attributed to works of literature including drama, poetry, and prose.

Critics point to literary merit as necessarily subjective, since aesthetic value is often determined by personal taste, and has been derided as a "relic of a scholarly elite". Despite these criticisms, many criteria have been suggested to determine literary merit including: standing the test of time, realistic characters, emotional complexity, originality, and concern with truth.

In 1957, at the obscenity trial for "Howl", author Walter Van Tilburg Clark was prodded into defining literary merit. His response outlines some of the popular criteria:

The only final test, it seems to me, of literary merit, is the power to endure. Obviously such a test cannot be applied to a new or recent work, and one cannot, I think, offer soundly an opinion on the probability of endurance save on a much wider acquaintance with the work or works of a writer than I have of Mr. Ginsberg's or perhaps even with a greater mass of production than Mr. Ginsberg's. ... Aside from this test of durability, I think the test of literary merit must be, to my mind, first, the sincerity of the writer. I would be willing, I think, even to add the seriousness of purpose of the writer, if we do not by that leave out the fact that a writer can have a fundamental serious purpose and make a humorous approach to it. I would add also there are certain specific ways in which craftsmanship at least of a piece of work, if not in any sense the art, which to my mind involves more, may be tested.

Poetry has its own standards that constitute literary merit, though these may overlap with prose. Use of rhetorical devices (i.e. similes, metaphors, etc.) as well as style of diction, rhythm, and syntax tend to produce work which meets the above criteria. For example, William Shakespeare's sonnets have received acclaim for his early pioneering of iambic pentameter a rhythmic device. Merit may also be derived from a poem's theme but tends to explore a greater focus on structure and positioning as well. Calligrams represent a poetic example in which critics explore the geometric shape of the text not necessarily an original theme or idea.

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