WHO IS VIVIAN IN WIT BY MARGARET EDSON

Vivian is 50 years old. She is a professor of seventeenth century poetry, and of John Donne’s Holy Sonnets in particular. She is dying of metastatic ovarian cancer. Vivian is an exacting scholar, much more comfortable with books and words than with other people. Even as a student she isolated herself and the pattern never changed. She only has one visitor through the course of her illness. Vivian is exceptionally bright and perceptive. She is unusually clever with words. Her lectures at the university are held in high regard. Her courses also have a reputation of being the toughest. Vivian is not a gentle and giving person, yet through her journey towards death, she learns the value of kindness.