The literary canon, as it was perceived by the reading public, was a complex and necessarily contested construction. Traditional forms, principally the epigram, still retained many readers' allegiance, reflecting the deep-lying continuities guiding emergent canonicity. Yet modernity, as we have seen, also affected the public's tastes very directly: the closed couplet, for example, came to enjoy particular favour, as did vernacular composition in general. These conflicting influences on readers' preferences need to be recognised, of course, because ultimately it was the responses of ordinary literate men and women – their impulses, their decisions – that determined the fate of printed texts in what was fast becoming a bustling and intensely competitive literary marketplace.