Peter Levi

Peter Chad Tigar Levi, FSA, FRSL (16 May 1931, in Ruislip – 1 February 2000, in Frampton-on-Severn) was a British poet, archaeologist, Jesuit priest, travel writer, biographer, academic and prolific reviewer and critic.

This delay had the side effect of enabling his first visit to Greece in 1963.

He travelled through Afghanistan with Bruce Chatwin in 1970, looking for traces of Greek culture.

He was to remain a Jesuit until he resigned the priesthood 29 years later in 1977.

Levi trained for the priesthood at Heythrop College and read Classics at Campion Hall.

During his teenage years he suffered from polio and as an undergraduate was knocked down by a car – the after-effects of these were to affect him throughout his life.

While at Heythrop, then a country house near Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire, he was not the most ruly of seminarians.

This and possible doubts about his vocation led to his ordination being delayed for a year:

He left the priesthood in 1977.

He subsequently married Deirdre Craig (granddaughter of Lord Craigavon), widow of Cyril Connolly.

He spent a year as archaeological correspondent for The Times before returning to academic life.

He was Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford (1984–1989).

Levi was born in Ruislip, Middlesex.

The family of his father (Herbert Simon Levi) came from Istanbul and that of his mother (Edith Mary Tigar) was English.

His mother was a devout Roman Catholic and his Jewish father converted to that religion; their three children all entered religious orders.

He was educated in private Catholic establishments starting at Prior Park near Bath, run by the Christian Brothers.

When he was 14, Oscar Wilde had become his literary idol.

Wilde had said that the Greek text of the Gospels was the most beautiful book in the world, so a school with more Greek was demanded and he changed schools to Beaumont College, a Jesuit school in Old Windsor, Berkshire.

While at Beaumont, at the age of 17 he joined the Society of Jesus as a novice.

In 1984, he was elected Oxford Professor of Poetry, an appointment requiring only a minimal number of public lectures.

In 1988, he claimed to have found a previously unknown poem by William Shakespeare in a manuscript at the Huntington Library in San Marino, California.

However, the claim has not been accepted by most scholars.

Most of this data retrieved from British Library catalogue July 2006.