Epiphany
In standard usage, epiphany refers to a revelation of
divine power, specifically, to the manifestation of Christ. The term was
appropriated by James Joyce in Stephen Hero (1905) to denote a sudden moment of insight, not necessarily of a religious
nature. (In the novel, the artist-protagonist makes it a point to record
these 'most delicate and evanescent of moments' conscientiously.) The concept is
closely related to what other modernist authors such as Conrad, Woolf, and
Mansfield term 'moment of vision', 'moment of being', or
'glimpse'; indeed Woolf usefully contrasts 'moments of being' to the
barren 'moments of non-being' of ordinary, non-reflective consciousness. Epiphanies gain structural weight in narratives that focus on the
stories unrolling within a character's consciousness ( see THOUGHT AND
CONSCIOUSNESS REPRESENTATION (LITERATURE)), especially in * genres such as the *
Bildungsroman, the story of initiation, and the story of recognition. 'Epiphanic
endings' have become a standard form of * closure, and the structural potential
of the device is strengthened by the inclusion of deceptive or false epiphanies
(see Mansfield's 'Bliss' for a particularly striking example).
from
Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory
Herman,
David, 1962-; Jahn, Manfred, 1943-; Ryan, Marie-Laure, 1946- (eds).
London:
Routledge, 2010