The learned and I will mess around with it later (8)
I believe the answer is:
literati
'the learned' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
I cannot understand how the remainder of the clue works.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for literati that I've seen before include "Well-educated readers" , "group of learned people" , "The well-read intelligentsia" , "intellectuals" , "The intelligentsia interested in writing and reading" .)