Epiphanies for The Epiphany

The feast of the Epiphany always leads me in a free-associtive sort of way to James Joyce’s definition of the word epiphany offered in Stephen Hero, one of his early works:

By an 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.

What is your understanding of the word epiphany? Is there a particular fictional epiphany that has made a big impression on you? (The conclusion of Joyce’s own story The Dead always knocks me out.) Do you have a personal epiphany you would like to share?

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