Vivienne Haigh-Wood Eliot and Irene Fassett. Vivienne Haigh-Wood Eliot Vivienne Haigh-Wood Eliot (28 May 1888 – 22 January 1947) was the first wife of American poet T. S. Eliot, whom she wed in 1915, while he was studying at Oxford. They were never compatible; he seems to have been seeking a pretext to stay in England, in defiance of his family, by marrying an English bride. Haigh-Wood had always suffered from serious health problems, compounded by insecurity about her social class. It is clear that her disastrous marriage worsened her condition. Eliot would not consider divorce, but formally separated from her in 1933.
Peter McDonald (critic) Peter McDonald (critic) Professor Peter McDonald (born 1962 in Belfast) is a poet, university lecturer and writer of literary criticism. He holds the post of Christopher Tower Student and Tutor in Poetry in the English Language at Christ Church, a college of the University of Oxford (and where the term "Student" is used for what elsewhere would be termed a "Fellow"). McDonald was educated at Methodist College, Belfast, and University College, Oxford. He has been writing poetry since his teens, and was the winner of national young poet competitions in 1978 and 1979. His first published poems were collected in