Yes. They reflected the culture of the ruling strata in their contemporary periods. That's why they are classics. The rest of the society (~90%) had no means to do any literature. That's why the classics were out of touch with their own times - which made Dickens such a difference by the way -, and the upper strata that was educated on them up until today are still out of touch with their own societies.
Yep. Unfortunately, they werent the ones that became 'classics'. Even worse, they were hardly documented and a lot of them were lost. That's what I meant - even the elite class were into regular songs for regular fun - its 100% certain that the songs that were being played in the bars that Karl Marx and his friends went through in their famous London pub crawl, weren't playing any classical music...
Yes. They reflected the culture of the ruling strata in their contemporary periods. That's why they are classics. The rest of the society (~90%) had no means to do any literature. That's why the classics were out of touch with their own times - which made Dickens such a difference by the way -, and the upper strata that was educated on them up until today are still out of touch with their own societies.