Sunday, July 17, 2011

POETS' CORNER AT WESTMINSTER ABBEY

Along with every other tourist in London, at least it seemed that way, we spent several hours wandering around England's coronation church which of course is renowned as the burial and memorial place of kings and queens and other notable figures in the nation's history. Including of course writers and musicians.
Poets' Corner, my favourite area in the Abbey, developed following the burial here of Geoffrey Chaucer in 1400. The burial of Edmund Spenser followed and thus began the tradition of burying or commemorating poets, dramatists and other writers in this corner of the Abbey.

Among the many significant writers I noticed buried here were Samuel Johnson, Charles Dickens, Robert Browning, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Thomas Hardy and Rudyard Kipling. Then there are many others who are commemorated here including William Shakespeare, William Blake, Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, Lewis Carrol, Henry James, T.S.Eliot and a number of the First World War poets.
A special place, pity about the other tourists!

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