Editing Poets' Corner (section)

==History==
[[File:View of Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey 01.jpg|thumb|250px|Partial view of Poets' Corner]]
[[File:View of the west wall of Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey.jpg|thumb|250px|The west wall of Poets' Corner]]
The first poet interred in Poets' Corner, [[Geoffrey Chaucer]], owed his 1400 burial in the Abbey (in front of St. Benedict's Chapel) more to his position as Clerk of Works of the [[Palace of Westminster]] than to his fame as a writer. The erection of his tomb by [[Nicholas Brigham]] in 1556 (to where Chaucer's remains were then transferred) and the nearby burial of [[Edmund Spenser]] in 1599 began a tradition that still continues. The area also houses the tombs of several [[Canon (priest)|Canons]] and [[Dean (Christianity)|Dean]]s of the Abbey, as well as the grave of [[Old Tom Parr|Thomas Parr]] who, it is said, died at the age of 152 in 1635 after having seen ten sovereigns on the throne.

Burial or commemoration in the Abbey does not always occur at or soon after the time of death. [[George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron|Lord Byron]], for example, whose poetry was admired but who maintained a scandalous lifestyle, died in 1824 but was not given a memorial until 1969. Even [[William Shakespeare]], buried at [[Stratford-upon-Avon]] in 1616, was not honoured with a monument until 1740 when one designed by [[William Kent]] was constructed in Poets' Corner (though shortly after Shakespeare's death [[William Basse]] had suggested Shakespeare should be buried there). [[Samuel Horsley]], [[Dean of Westminster]] in 1796, was said to have tartly refused the request for the actress [[Kitty Clive]] to be buried in the Abbey:

<blockquote>if we do not draw some line in this theatrical ambition to mortuary fame, we shall soon make Westminster Abbey little better than a Gothic ''[[Green Room]]''!<ref>''The Times'', 26 March 1796, p. 3</ref></blockquote>

Not all poets appreciated memorialisation and [[Samuel Wesley (poet, died 1735)|Samuel Wesley]]'s epitaph for [[Samuel Butler (poet)|Samuel Butler]], who supposedly died in poverty, continued Butler's satiric tone:

{{poemquote|While Butler, needy wretch, was yet alive,
No generous patron would a dinner give;
See him, when starv'd to death, and turn'd to dust,
Presented with a monumental bust.
The poet's fate is here in emblem shown,
He ask'd for bread, and he received a stone.
}}

[[File:Charles Dickens grave 2012.jpg|thumb|right|230px|Grave of [[Charles Dickens]]]]
Some of those buried in Poets' Corner also had memorials erected to them over or near their grave, either around the time of their death or later. In some cases, such as [[Joseph Addison]], the burial took place elsewhere in Westminster Abbey, with a memorial later erected in Poets' Corner. In some cases a full burial of a body took place, in other, later, cases the body was cremated and the ashes buried. There are also cases where there was support for a particular individual to be buried in Poets' Corner, but the decision was made to bury them elsewhere in the Abbey, such as [[Edward Bulwer-Lytton]]. Other notable poets and writers, such as [[Aphra Behn]], are buried elsewhere in the Abbey. At least two of the memorials (both to individuals buried in Poets' Corner – [[Nicholas Rowe (writer)|Nicholas Rowe]] and [[John Gay]]) were later moved to a location elsewhere in the Abbey due to the discovery of old paintings on the wall behind them. In 1936 the ashes of the author and poet [[Rudyard Kipling]] were interred.