Madeleine L'Engle and Sacred Idleness:: A Religious and Scientific Defense of the Imagination

I have discovered new evidence in the de Grummond Children's Literature Collection at the University of Southern Mississippi that reveals L'Engle's defense of the imagination is in fact an important, overlooked theme of the Time Quartet. Perhaps the greatest find in the collection is the original, unpublished transcript of A Wrinkle in Time, which includes an alternate "Aunt Beast" chapter as well as a deleted chapter. Due to omissions, the published book obscures many themes of the Time Quartet, including L'Engle's defense of the imagination. These new resources also suggest that L'Engle's idea of the imagination and themes of the Time Quartet were significantly influenced by the ideas of George MacDonald and Albert Einstein. A study of these influences and new resources alongside L'Engle's published material indicates that L'Engle in fact synthesized MacDonald's idea of the religious benefits of using the imagination with the intellectual, scientific advantages associated with Einstein's use of the imagination, and in doing so, L'Engle created in her Time Quartet a hybrid defense of imagination all her own called "Sacred Idleness."