Harold Bloom, U.S. writer and literary critic, who left a great legacy for the realm of literary criticism with his book "The Anxiety of Influence," died at age 89 on Monday.

His death was confirmed by his wife, Jeanne Bloom, who said that he had been in failing health, despite the fact that he was still teaching last week, his final lesson as a professor at Yale University.

During his life, he was known as a firm defender of the superiority of the literary giants, including William Shakespeare, Geoffrey Chaucer and Franz Kafka. In his book "The Anxiety of Influence," he argued that poets, in the process of creation, would fight to distort and deny their ancestor poets, instead of paying tribute to them.

He had been sticking to pure classicism in aestheticism, and openly acknowledged Shakespeare as his hero. His books, "The Western Canon" and "The Book of J" brought him to the best-seller list.

In China, for the students and professors studying literary criticism, he was also a prominent figure and gained quite some followers.

He had remained controversial in the literature circle, for criticizing schools such as feminism, deconstructivism, new criticism, and Harry Potter books and blaming the awarding of the honorary National Book Award to Stephen King.

He was never a supporter of "political correctness," and used to criticize Doris Lessing's Nobel Prize for literature for her feminist book "The Golden Notebook."

However, he was loved by many in China, as a defender, or a guard of classic literature. Many loved him for his profound writing and the spiritual worlds he was creating. For his followers, he was the critic who had been trying to give writing back its original place in society.

"At the heart of Professor Bloom's writing was a passionate love of literature and a relish for its heroic figures," reads in New York Times' report. The critic called himself a "monster" of reading, saying that "he could read and absorb a 400-page book in an hour."

Some of his Chinese readers, while posting "RIP" on their social media account, moaning the death of the critic, said that "he is the person who influenced my choices of books."

"The last knight and keeper of the 'Western Canons' fell," a reader posted.