(Ross 166) Addison’s annotated version of Milton’s Paradise Lost, published in the Spectator, converts the idea of learning into cultural capital. To Dryden the best authors touched on 'permanent verities of nature and human experience' which therefore-also meant that the works would enjoy longevity, i.e. The Restoration era makes a change in canon. (Ross 91) Ben Jonson’s 1610 Folio Works is the first self-consciously canonical edition of an author’s works in English literature, which marks a change in thinking. (Ross 87)Ross points out that 'canon-making in this period was primarily intended to enhance the value of literature in the vernacular and to help foster the English literary system'. Trevor Ross informs us that William Covell, a Cambridge don, says in 1595 that English Universities should canonize their authors in order to raise England’s status at home and abroad as a symbol of literary eminence. (Altieri 53) The Theological criticism of the Middle Ages defines theology as poetry of God and raises poetry to the status of theology in order to save poetry from current dogmatic religious threats. They set 'standards of sublimity' of imagination and thought. Longinus adds a greater dimension in aesthetics by sublimating the self of the poet as a determinative function. Aristotle defends poetry and manipulates Plato’s terms and raises the value of poetry as superior to philosophy. Because of the rift dividing philosophy (hailed as the only authentic form of knowledge) and poetry, Plato is so hard on the poets that he expels them on moral grounds from his ideal state.

In Plato’s ideal state the literary canon is impossible. Key terms: Canon, Anxiety of Influence,Originality, Strangeness, Aesthetic-str ength It will further analyse the contemporary debate on canon-formation and Harold Bloom's defence of the canon. The present paper shall seek to explore in brief a historical evolution and criteria of the canon-formation.

Such an offence on the canon, sometime it may be right, aims to reduce the canonical stature of an author of genius to the level of either an historian or a propagandist. Sometimes, some of these theorists demand to open the canon since they see some politics behind the canon. The contemporary academic world is intensely involved in the debate on the process of canon-formation (I am limiting my focus on the western literary canon). Debate on Canon-Formation and Harold Bloom’s Defence of the Canon

Bloom the western canon