This book studies literary epiphany as a modality of character in the British and American novel. Epiphany presents a significant alternative to traditional models of linking the eye, the mind, and subject formation, an alternative that consistently attracts the language of spirituality, even in anti-supernatural texts. This book analyzes how these epiphanies become ‘spiritual’ and how both character and narrative shape themselves like constellations around such moments. This study begins with James Joyce, ‘inventor’ of literary epiphany, and Martin Heidegger, who used the ancient Greek concepts behind ‘epiphaneia’ to re-define the concept of Being. Kim then offers readings of novels by Susan Warner, George Eliot, Edith Wharton, Virginia Woolf, and William Faulkner, each addressing a different form of epiphany.
Table of Content
Opening the Subject: Joyce and Heidegger on Epiphany The Promise of Being: Spiritual Epiphany in The Wide, Wide World Reverse Projection: Moral Epiphany in Middlemarch The Dark Flash: Epiphany and Heredity in The House of Mirth The Mirror of Mental Ruin in To the Lighthouse The Look of the Other in The Bear
About the author
Sharon Kim is a professor of English at Judson University.
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