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And within the chapel can be seen the Coronation Chair and the tombs of five kings and four queens. At the eastern end is the tomb and Chantey Chapel of Henry Y, embellished with carvings including scenes of Henry Y’s coronation. The effigy of the king once had a silver head and silver regalia, and was covered in silver regalia, and was covered in silver gilt, but this precious metal was stolen in 1546.
Eleanor of Castle, first wife of Edward I, lies beside the Chapel. Her body was carried to Westminster from Lincoln, a memorial cross being erected at each place where the funeral procession rested.
Beside her lies Henry III, responsible for the rebuilding of the Abbey, in a tomb of Purbeck marble. Next to his tomb is that of Edward I. Richard II and Anne of Bohemia, Edward III and Philippa of Hainnault, and Catherine de Valois, Henry Y’s Queen, also lie in this chapel.
THE SOUTH TRANSEPT is lit by a large rose window, with glass dating from 1902. Beneath it, in the angles above the right and left arches, are two of the finest carvings in the Abbey, depicting sensing angels. In addition to the many monuments there are two fine late thirteen-century wall-paintings, uncovered in 1936, to be seen by the door leading into St Faith’s Chapel. They depict Christ showing his wounds to Doubting Thomas, and St Christopher. Beside the south wall rises the dormer staircase, once used by the monks going from their dormitory to the Choir for their night offices.
POET’S CORNER
One of the most well-known parts of Westminster Abbey, Poet’s Corner can be found in the south Transept. It was not originally designated as the burial place of writers, playwrights and poets; the first poet to be buried here, Geoffrey Chaucer, was laid to rest in Westminster Abbey because he had been Clerk of Works to the Palace of Westminster, not because he had written the Canterbury Tales. However, the inscription over his grave, placed there by William Caxton - the famous printer whose press was just beyond the transept wall - mentioned that he was a poet.
Over 150 years later, during the flowering of English literature in the sixteenth century, a more magnificent tomb was erected to Chaucer by Nicholas Brigham and in 1599 Edmund Spencer was laid to rest nearby. These two tombs began a tradition which developed over succeeding centuries.
Burial or commemoration in the abbey did not always occur at or soon after the time of death - many of those whose monuments now stand here had to wait a number of years for recognition; Byron, for example, whose lifestyle caused a scandal although his poetry was much admired, died in 1824 but was finally given a memorial only in 1969. Even Shakespeare, buried at Stratford-upon-Avon in 1616, had to wait until 1740 before a monument, designed by William Kent, appeared in Poet’s Corner. Other poets and writers, well-known in their own day, have now vanished into obscurity, with only their monuments to show that they were once famous.
Conversely, many whose writings are still appreciated today have never been memorialised in Poet’s Corner, although the reason may not always be clear. Therefore a resting place or memorial in Poet’s Corner should perhaps not be seen as a final statement of a writer or poet’s literary worth, but more as a reflection of their public standing at the time of death - or as an indication of the fickleness of Fate.
Some of the most famous to lie here, in addition to those detailed on the next two pages include BenJonson, John Dryden, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Robert Browning and John Masefield, among the poets, and William Camden, Dr Samuel Johnson, Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Rudyard Kipling and Thomas Hardy among the writers.
Charles Dickens’s grave attracts particular interest. As a writer who drew attention to the hardships born by the socially deprived and who advocated the abolition of the slave trade, he won enduring fame and gratitude and today, more than 110 years later, a wreath is still laid on his tomb on the anniversary of his death each year.
Реферат опубликован: 11/01/2008