With the canon debate, prominent in literary criticism since the early 1970s, as the sounding board, the study aims at investigating and discussing in critical perspective the function of considerations to do with canon for literary criticism at the formation stage. It focuses on the interaction between a critic's canonical preferences ('versions of the past') and his desire for improved cultural and/or aesthetic conditions ('visions of the future') in the criticism of Eliot, Leavis, Frye and Bloom.