Poets' Corner is the name traditionally given to a section of the South Transept of Westminster Abbey because of the good number of poets, playwrights, and writers buried and commemorated there.
The first person to be interred in Poets' Corner was Geoffrey Chaucer in 1556. Over the centuries, a tradition has grown up of interring or memorialising people there in recognition of their contribution to British culture. In the overwhelming majority of cases, the honour is awarded to writers.
In 2009 the founders of the Royal Ballet were commemorated in a memorial floor stone and on 25 September 2010 the writer Elizabeth Gaskell was celebrated with the dedication of a panel in the memorial window. Most recently commemorated, on 6 Decemner 2011, with a floor stone, was Poet Laureate Ted Hughes. On 22 November 2013, the fiftieth anniversary of his death, writer C. S. Lewis will be next to be commemorated.
Read more about Poets' Corner: History, Memorial Types, Burials, Memorials, World War I Poets, Royal Ballet, Elsewhere in The Abbey
Famous quotes containing the word corner:
“Have you not budged an inch, then? Such is the daily news. Its facts appear to float in the atmosphere.... We should wash ourselves clean of such news. Of what consequence, though our planet explode, if there is no character involved in the explosion? In health we have not the least curiosity about such events. We do not live for idle amusement. I would not run round a corner to see the world blow up.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)