> The thing is that academics are the arbiters of literary taste Is that true? I wouldn't have thought so. Professors of literature are a fairly new thing (say

> The thing is that academics are the arbiters of literary taste Is that true? I wouldn't have thought so. Professors of literature are a fairly new thing (say one hundred years) while literary taste has been a thing for many hundreds of years. I'd suggest that other/former arbiters of literary taste would include intellectuals, literary salons, the aristocracy, the clergy, other writers, and always too a populist element (books without any appeal to the populace rarely survive to be elevated to the canon).