canon...consistent with your formative experience

I'm wondering...could there be a bit of the oxymoronic slipping into this? Doesn't canon necessarily negate (or at least stifle) the flexibility, cirumstance, and exploration of the formative experience? Doesn't canonization imply a certain rigidty impossible to achieve within the throes of your formative experience? For instance, I read Shakespeare in school, but I didn't really discover Shakespeare until my 20's. And while I firmly believe his work belongs in the canon of the English language, I can't in good conscience relegate him to my formative experience. However, a personal canon of authors who represent an individual's hallowed halls of English literary influences and shapers is a worthy, attainable, and interesting endeavor. But to reach some sort of consensus through individuation seems to me a noble but unreachable task. Perhaps, mav, it's the choice of wording?...perhaps you're close, but not quite, in what you're looking for here?