Corner of the poets

The Coin of the Poets is it that one gives traditionally to a section of the southern transept of the Abbaye of Westminster because of the great number of poets, playwrights and writers who there are now buried or commemorated.

The first nobody to be buried there was Geoffrey Chaucer, which off owes its place in the abbey more with its position like Clerk Works of Work of the Palais of Westminster that to its glory as author. However, the erection of a splendid tomb by Nicholas Brigham in the honor of Chaucer in the middle of the sixteenth century and the burial of Edmund Spenser in the vicinity in 1599 inaugurated a tradition which remained, although this part shelters also the tombs of several canons and seniors of the abbey. One also finds there, which one says that he died at the 152 years age in 1635, after having seen passing ten sovereigns on the throne.

The burial or the construction of a monument in the Abbey did not always take place right after death. Lord Byron, for example, which one admired the poetry, but whose way of life scandalized, died in 1824, but did not receive a memorial before 1969. Even Shakespeare, buried with Stratford-upon-Avon in 1616, did not receive the honor of a monument until 1740 when that which William Kent drew was built in the Corner of the Poets.

All poets have not appreciated this way to celebrate people and epitaph of Samuel Wesley for Samuel Butler, which one says that he died in misery, perpetuates the satirical tone of Butler:

“ As long as Butler, poor needy, still lived,

No owner generous would have given him what to dine;

Voyez maintaining it when, dead hunger, it is become again dust,

One presents it with a monumental bust.

It is completely the destiny of the poet whom one sees here,

It wanted only bread and one gave him a stone ”.