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:
“Perfect alchemists I keep who can transmute substances without end, and thus the corner of my garden is an inexhaustible treasure-chest. Here you can dig, not gold, but the value which gold merely represents; and there is no Signor Blitz about it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)