Epiphanies and the Clinic

By epiphany he meant a sudden spiritual manifestation, whether in the vulgarity of speech or of gesture or in a memorable phase of the mind itself He believed that it was for the man of letters to record these epiphanies with extreme care, seeing that they themselves are the most delicate and evanescent of moments.[1] This is the young James Joyce explaining his theory of epiphanies in his early work, Stephen Hero.…