definition of epiphanae in literature and examples.?

Question

In literature what is the definition about epiphanae, origen, writers that use it, etc.

Answer 1

An epiphany is an 'Aha!' or a 'Eureka!' moment. A sudden realization that has the potential to abruptly change your whole world-view from how it was a moment before. It may be precipitated by something witnessed, or sometimes just by thought and having all the pieces suddenly fall into place.

The term has been used for thousands of years, usually with religous connotations. James Joyce popularized the term in writing and for secular purposes, first in the book "Stephen Hero", and more extensively in other works. It might also be said that 'love at first sight' is a kind of epiphany - when a person sees someone else and instantly realizes that they are going to spend the rest of their lives with that person. As such, you can find it a lot in romantic poetry. Here's a sample from the poem "Sudden Light" by Rossetti:

You have been mine before, -
How long ago I may not know:
But just when at that swallow's soar
Your neck turned so,
Some veil did fall, - I knew it all of yore.

We see another example of an 'Aha', in this case a 'veil falling' which suddenly reveals a new world. You can see the religious roots here too - death is often described in the same terms: a veil falls away and Heaven (or Hell!) is revealed.

Hope that gave you an epiphany of your own!

Answer 2

Epiphanae (sing. epiphany) is the experience of reaching a sudden realization about something, usually of cosmic or far-reaching importance. It's almost the same is usage as an enlightenment, but while it's often of religious significance, an epiphany can be on something so simple as realizing your significant other is really a bad person after all.

Epiphany is ultimately derived from ancient Greek. Epi- means 'forth', while phan- or phanai- means 'to show' or 'to see'. It's usually taken to mean 'manifestation' or 'appearance'.

I'm not familiar with any authors that use the process, however.

Answer 3

its the "Light Bulb Moment" in which the character realizes something. umm... I cant really think of an example...its just like when something clicks...and its usually something pretty drastic, such as someone realizing for the first time they where the cause of all their problems in life, or that they truely ruined another individuals life and they haden't beleived or accepted it up until that moment...there was a story I read once about a old lady convincing her family to go to florida or arizona on vacation and they ended up getting tied up by a serial killer and he took them one by one into the woods and killed off the children and parents and she was left and was talking to him about his life, and she said why you one of my children!, then he shot her... or something like that, because she realized he was a human being he just wound up going down the wrong path...that little story prolly wasn't much help seeing as I culdn't remember any of it but i hope the definition helped ;p I thought of something that might explane uit better but i dont have a direst example again...like in a story (or movie) when someeone has one of those scenes where it shows all the flashbacks of certain things in their head of like...someone close to them when they realize they've been betrayed and they go back over all the evidence in their mind...ok this is a corny example but its the best i can think of without breaking out the books, ever see resident evil, the epiphany is when alice gets her memory back and realizes that that guy betrayed all of them...thats kind of a bad one but its the best I can think of, its summer and I havent read anything in a while and everything I have I cant remember the names of the characters.