A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man | Literary Qualities
The term "epiphany" looms large in Joyce's earlier work, providing a helpful point of entry into both Dubliners and Portrait. The term's roots are Greek; it means, literally, a "showing forth." In the Christian calendar, the feast of the Epiphany, celebrated on January 6, the "Twelfth Night" of Christmas, commemorates the arrival of the Magi in Bethlehem to worship the newborn Christ—the "epiphany" is the showing forth of Christ to the three kings. Joyce adopted the term and broadened its sense to describe a series of very short prose pieces he wrote between 1900 and...
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