> I'm sure there were plenty of mediocre or terrible plays from other writers at the time that no one cares about now, and are thus not "high culture". I don't

> I'm sure there were plenty of mediocre or terrible plays from other writers at the time that no one cares about now, and are thus not "high culture". I don't think that is historically accurate. From what I've read "high" vs. "low" culture changes over time, very often based on aesthetics. Brahms wrote both high and low art by the late 19th-century audience's standards. Today it's all just Brahms, who is a "classical composer", hence all "high art." Most importantly, there is no reason at all to believe that it cannot change again in the future. E.g., Brahms goes viral and gets treated as some kind of KPop sensation. Then we get some young punk doing cosplay as a steampunk Musikwissenschaftler claiming that Hungarian Dance No. 5 no longer slaps as high as it used to.