Emily Dickinson sublimely unnames even the blanks.

One breaks into the canon only by aesthetic strength.

One mark of originality that can win canonical status for a literary work is strangeness that we either never altogether assimilate, or that becomes such a given that we are blinded to its idiosyncrasies.

Samuel Johnson said Alexander Pope's translation of the Iliad, "tuned the English tongue.

Reviewing bad books is bad for the character – WH Auden

Canonical writing is born of an originality fused with tradition. – From the book jacket