SOURCE: "Annie Dillard: Modern Physics in a Contemporary Mystic," in Mosaic, Vol. 22, No. 2, Spring, 1989, pp. 1-14.

In the following essay, Felch provides an overview of Dillard's writing and investigates how physics has shaped Dillard's cosmology.

"Art is my interest, mysticism my message, Christian mysticism," Annie Dillard wrote early in her career to a fellow English professor (Wymard). With such authorial support and direction, many critics have naturally concentrated their analyses on Dillard's mystical vision or Christian commitments (Dunn; Keller; Ronda; Peterson). Others have, with good warrant, considered her affinity to American transcendentalists (McConahay; McIlroy). A few have noticed her consuming concern with esthetics (Lavery; Scheick). Little attention has been paid, however, to Dillard's fascination with modern scientific theories.

In her latest book, An American Childhood, Dillard records a French teacher's evaluation of her as an adolescent: "Here, alas, is a child of the twentieth century." Nowhere does the...