There is a good reason for Tolkien to immediately come to mind, because he laid the foundations for “classic” modern fantasy, including its depiction of elves. His influence was (and is) hard to overstate. However, as he freely admitted, he built his own world on much older and well-established stories. He may have popularised this particular view of elves, but he didn’t invent it.

The word elf is used to describe a pretty diverse range of supernatural beings. One tradition is that of a small bucolic or sylvan fairy. They could be naughty and mischievous, or even evil on occasion. These elves were often portrayed as somewhat shy of humans, rather frivolous and fond of dancing. Examples of this include Edwardian children’s literature or even Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Every elf and fairy sprite

Hop as light as bird from brier;

And this ditty, after me,

Sing, and dance it trippingly.

Tolkien himself used this type of elf in some of his earlier works like in The Book of Lost Tales and The Father Christmas Letters. This even survived into The Hobbit, with the singing and dancing elves in Rivendell. But at the end of the following passage we also catch a glimpse of something deeper and darker.

So they laughed and sang in the trees; and pretty fair nonsense I daresay you think it. Not that they would care; they would only laugh all the more if you told them so. They were elves of course. Soon Bilbo caught glimpses of them as the darkness deepened. He loved elves, though he seldom met them; but he was a little frightened of them too. Dwarves don’t get on well with them. Even decent enough dwarves like Thorin and his friends think them foolish (which is a very foolish thing to think)…

These elves may appear silly, but underestimate them at your peril. This blends into the other literary tradition where elves are depicted as human-sized and serious sages, warriors or lovers. An example of this is Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene, who uses phrases like “valiant Elfe” and “Elfin knight”.

There are already hints of these types of elves in The Hobbit, notably Elrond and the Elvenking. You can’t imagine the scholarly Elrond or stern Elvenking singing “Tril-lil-lil-lolly the valley is jolly”. To borrow the terms you used in your question, they could be seen as “superior” and “elitist”. The Elvenking is definitely “arrogant” as well.

“Very well! We’ll see! No treasure will come back through Mirkwood without my having something to say in the matter. But I expect they will all come to a bad end, and serve them right!”

This more serious type of elf is the one Tolkien fully embraces in The Lord of the Rings. He knew very well that there were multiple definitions for “elf” and that this could be problematic. In some of his earlier work he used the word “gnome” to refer to the Noldor group of elves. He explained that he used “gnome” because it suggests knowledge, based upon how it was used by the 16th century writer Paracelsus. In some early editions of The Hobbit you can still find the word “gnome” but he decided to abandon it because “they in no way resembled the Gnomes either of learned theory or popular fantasy”.

Later Tolkien seeks to clarify his thoughts on the word elf in Appendix F of The Lord of the Rings.

Elves has been used to translate… Quendi, ‘the speakers’, the High-elven name of all their kind… This old word was indeed the only one available, and was once fitted to apply to such memories of this people as Men preserved… But it has been diminished, and to many it may now suggest fancies either pretty or silly, as unlike to the Quendi of old as are butterflies to the swift falcon… They were a race high and beautiful, the older Children of the world… They were valiant… Their dominion passed long ago, and they dwell now beyond the circles of the world, and do not return.

My main sources for this was J.R.R. Tolkien’s own writings, as well as his son Christopher’s interpretation of them and notes on his unpublished text. John D. Rateliff did a lot of work to uncover and understand the literary and cultural background of Tolkien’s world.