Epiphany
A Christian festival. Cuddondefines epiphany as the term primarily denotes the festival which commemorates the manifestation of christ to the Geniles in the persons of the Magi. The feast is observed on January 6th,'Twelfth Night',the festival of the 'Three Kings'. (277).Cuddon alsostates " More generally, the term denotes a manifestation of God's presence in the world". (277). A sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into reality or the essential meaning of something, often initiated by some simple, commonplace occurance.
The term "epiphany" was "taken over by James Joyce to denote secular revelation in the everyday world, in an early version of his novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Baldick, 84) written in 1916. "Joyce defined an epiphany as a sudden spiritual manifestation in which a 'whatness' of a common object or gesture appears radiant to the observer" (Baldick 84).
Works Cited
- Cuddon, J. A. Literary Terms & Literary Theory. Penguin Books, Ltd. 1998.
- Baldick, Chris. Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms. Oxford University Press, 2004.