Banville's scientific tetralogy (1976-1986) – Doctor Copernicus (1976), Kepler (1985), The Newton Letter (1982) and Mefisto (1986) – comes after the self-contained worlds of his first two novels, Nightspawn (1971) and Birchwood (1984). The tetralogy traces an interesting trajectory in historical and scientific development from early modernity to the present, highlighting an intriguing interplay between scientific knowledge and literature. In an article published in the New York Times in 1985, “Physics and Fiction: Order from Chaos”, Banville suggested a kinship between modern science and literature, in particular in terms of cognitive uncertainties, as propounded by Heisenberg:
The dream of certainty, of arriving at a simple, elegant, and above all concrete answer, has had to be abandoned [...] as science moves away from the search for blank certainties it takes on more and more the...
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Citation: Palazzolo, Pietra. "Doctor Copernicus". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 25 October 2002 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=5542, accessed 05 December 2025.]
