# Artistic merit > Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Artistic_merit > Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Artistic_merit.md > Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artistic_merit > Source revision: 1352779420 > License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) Concept about the value of art objects The works of English playwright [William Shakespeare](/source/William_Shakespeare) are considered by many to be among the highest achievements in Western art. **Artistic merit** is the artistic quality or value of any given [work of art](/source/Work_of_art), music, film, [literature](/source/Literature), sculpture or painting. ## Obscenity and literary merit The [1921 US trial](/source/Obscenity_trial_of_Ulysses_in_The_Little_Review) of James Joyce's novel *[Ulysses](/source/Ulysses_(novel))* concerned the publication of the *Nausicaa* episode by the literary magazine *[The Little Review](/source/The_Little_Review)*, which was serializing the novel. Though not required to do so by law, [John Quinn](/source/John_Quinn_(collector)), the lawyer for the defence, decided to produce three literary experts to attest to the literary merits of *Ulysses*, as well as *The Little Review*'s broader reputation.[1] The first expert witness was [Philip Moeller](/source/Philip_Moeller), of the [Theatre Guild](/source/Theatre_Guild), who interpreted *Ulysses* using the [Freudian](/source/Freudian) method of unveiling the subconscious mind, which prompted one of the judges to ask him to "speak in a language that the court could understand".[2] The next witness was [Scofield Thayer](/source/Scofield_Thayer), editor of *[The Dial](/source/The_Dial)*, another literary magazine of the time, who "was forced to admit that if he had had the desire to publish *Ulysses* he would have consulted a lawyer first—and not published it".[2] The final witness was English novelist, lecturer, and critic [John Cowper Powys](/source/John_Cowper_Powys), who declared that *Ulysses* was a "beautiful piece of work in no way capable of corrupting the minds of young girls".[2] The editors were found guilty under laws associated with the [Comstock Act](/source/Comstock_Act) of 1873, which made it illegal to circulate materials deemed [obscene](/source/Obscene) in the [U.S. mail](/source/U.S._mail), incurred a $100 fine, and were forced to cease publishing *Ulysses* in *The Little Review*. It was not until the 1933 case *[United States v. One Book Called Ulysses](/source/United_States_v._One_Book_Called_Ulysses)* that the novel could be published in the United States without fear of prosecution. Another important obscenity trial occurred 1960 in Britain, when the full unexpurgated edition of [D. H. Lawrence](/source/D._H._Lawrence)'s *[Lady Chatterley's Lover](/source/Lady_Chatterley's_Lover)* was published by [Penguin Books](/source/Penguin_Books). The [trial of Penguin](/source/R_v_Penguin_Books_Ltd.) under the [Obscene Publications Act 1959](/source/Obscene_Publications_Act_1959) was a major public event and a test of the new [obscenity](/source/Obscenity) law. The 1959 act (introduced by [Roy Jenkins](/source/Roy_Jenkins)) had made it possible for publishers to escape conviction if they could show that a work was of literary merit. Several academic critics and experts of diverse kinds, including [E. M. Forster](/source/E._M._Forster), [Helen Gardner](/source/Helen_Gardner_(critic)), [Richard Hoggart](/source/Richard_Hoggart), [Raymond Williams](/source/Raymond_Williams), [Norman St John-Stevas](/source/Norman_St_John-Stevas) and [John Robinson](/source/John_Robinson_(bishop_of_Woolwich)), Anglican bishop of Woolwich, were called as witnesses for the defence, and the verdict, delivered on 2 November 1960, was "not guilty".[3] This resulted in a far greater degree of freedom for publishing explicit sexual material in the United Kingdom. ## See also - [Aesthetics](/source/Aesthetics) - [Art](/source/Art) - [Kitsch](/source/Kitsch) - [Masterpiece](/source/Masterpiece) - [Taste (sociology)](/source/Taste_(sociology)) - [Theory of art](/source/Theory_of_art) ## References 1. **[^](#cite_ref-1)** de Grazia, Edward (1992). [*Girls Lean Back Everywhere: The Law of Obscenity and the Assault on Genius*](https://archive.org/details/girlsleanbackeve00degrrich). New York: Random House. p. [10](https://archive.org/details/girlsleanbackeve00degrrich/page/10). 1. ^ [***a***](#cite_ref-auto5_2-0) [***b***](#cite_ref-auto5_2-1) [***c***](#cite_ref-auto5_2-2) Anderson, Margaret, C (1930). [*My Thirty Years' War: An Autobiography by Margaret Anderson*](https://archive.org/details/mythirtyyearswar0000unse). Covici, Fried. p. [220](https://archive.org/details/mythirtyyearswar0000unse/page/220).{{[cite book](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Cite_book)}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list ([link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:CS1_maint:_multiple_names:_authors_list)) 1. **[^](#cite_ref-3)** Feather, John. *A History Of British Publishing*. p. 205; Rolph, C. H, ed. (1990). *The Trial of Lady Chatterley* (2nd ed.) v t e Aesthetics Areas African Ancient Indian Japanese Mathematics Medieval Music Nature Science Theology Schools Aestheticism Classicism Fascism Feminism Formalism Historicism Marxism Modernism Postmodernism Psychoanalysis Realism Romanticism Symbolism Theosophy more... Philosophers Abhinavagupta Adorno Alberti Akhundov Ibn Arabi Aristotle Aquinas Balázs Balthasar Bataille Baudelaire Baudrillard Baumgarten Bell Benjamin Burke Coleridge Collingwood Coomaraswamy Danto Deleuze Dewey Flaubert Foucault Fry Goethe Goodman Gramsci Greenberg Hanslick Hegel Heidegger Hume Hutcheson Kant Kierkegaard Klee Langer Lipps Liu Lukács Lyotard de Man Marcuse Maritain Merleau-Ponty Nietzsche Ortega y Gasset Orwell Pater Petrarch Plato Pythagoras Quintilian Rancière Rand Richards Ruskin Said Santayana Schiller Schopenhauer Scruton Sontag Tagore Tanizaki Tolkien Vasari Wilde Winckelmann Woolf Zola more... Concepts Apollonian and Dionysian Appropriation Art for art's sake Art manifesto Artistic merit Authenticity Avant-garde Beauty Feminine Masculine Cool Camp Comedy Creativity Cuteness Depiction Disgust Ecstasy Elegance Emotions Entertainment Eroticism Exoticism Fashion Gaze Harmony Hegemony Imperialism Humour Iconography Aniconism Integrity Interpretation Judgment Kama Kitsch Life imitating art Magnificence Mimesis Morality Perception Picturesque Quality Rasa Recreation Leisure Reverence Satire Style Sublime Taste Tragedy Work of art Works Hippias Major (c. 390 BCE) Poetics (c. 335 BCE) Ars Poetica (c. 19 BCE) The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons (c. 100) On the Sublime (c. 500) Asrar al-Balagha (11th century) Mumyōzōshi (13th century) On the Sublime and Beautiful (1757) Lectures on Aesthetics (1835) "The Critic as Artist" (1891) "A Room of One's Own" (1929) In Praise of Shadows (1933) Art as Experience (1934) "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1935) "Avant-Garde and Kitsch" (1939) Prison Notebooks (Gramsci) 1947 Critical Essays (1946) Against Interpretation (1966) "Notes on 'Camp'" (1964) The Aesthetic Dimension (1977) Orientalism (1978) Why Beauty Matters (2009) Related Applied aesthetics Arts criticism Art criticism The arts and politics Aestheticization of politics Artistic freedom Axiology Economics of the arts and literature Artistic patronage Cultural economics Evolutionary aesthetics Mathematical beauty Neuroesthetics Patterns in nature Philosophy of design Philosophy of film Philosophy of language Semantics Philosophy of music Psychology of art Religious art Theory of art Outline Category Philosophy portal --- Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Artistic merit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artistic_merit) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artistic_merit?action=history)). 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