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As Church Shows Its Age, Bard Is Still the Rage
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More than 200,000 people visit the church each year, many from Japan and the United States and a growing number from China, and many ask the same thing.
Penn dived into an answer, explaining passionately that Shakespeare's prominent burial site in the church had nothing to do with his literary talent. It was because Shakespeare was a lay rector of the church, which entitled him to burial there (although not necessarily in the center).
As Ruan headed back to the center of town a few blocks away, the Argentine teenagers buzzed around the grave, snapping photos of one another. One, who gave his name only as Nicolas, was unimpressed: "There are too many dead people here."
But this one dead person kept attracting a crowd.
At 3:45, a German couple walked in, seemingly star-struck as they gazed at the resting place of the author of "Romeo and Juliet." Collins Davis, 25, an organic fruit and vegetable farmer from Alabama, approached the grave, amazement on his face. "We don't have anything this old in the United States," he said, kneeling to take photos.
At 4 p.m., as the fading afternoon sunlight shone weakly though the stained-glass windows, Sandra Hutchings, an Australian, explained the place's international draw: "We have all been touched by him, whatever nationality you are."
Cath Blann was one of the few English people in the old English church on this Sunday afternoon.
"I thought he was buried at Westminster Abbey," she said, referring to the London landmark where Charles Dickens, Rudyard Kipling and other giants of English literature lie. Maybe, she said, the British take some of their history for granted because they are "surrounded by it all the time."
As she spoke, her giggling son began to crawl under the brass railing, and she gently pulled him back. "Aidan, darling," she said, "don't crawl on Shakespeare's grave."
Penn happily kept fielding questions, particularly about the curse, until 5 p.m., time to close up and prepare for Sunday evening service.
