Moments of Being (V.Woolf)

Moments of being are moments of utmost intensity, of perception, of vision in the “incessant shower of innumerable atoms” that strike our minds every day. They reveal to the individual who experiences them the pattern behind the woolly curtain of existence; and the existence of a pattern reveals the possibility of connection to other people.

They are moments of intesity of perception which illuminate our lives and offer us a better vision of life, time and identity because the individual can perceive the real essence of things.

Joyce's Epiphanies

The term ‘epiphany' derives from Greek and it means a sudden manifestation of deity; it also means the manifestation of a hidden message in Christian theology.

Joyce used the term to define some sketches he wrote between 1898 and 1904. According to the mystery of transubstantiation and what he was trying to do, Joyce imagined that flesh becomes word.

He did not define exactly what epiphany meant in his works, but thanks Stephen Daedalus' Stephen Hero we can say that epiphany is a sudden and momentary showing forth of one's authentic inner self. Other definitions of epiphany were given by Stanislaus (Joyce's brother) who said that it was ironical observations of errors and gestures by which people deceived the very things they were most careful to hide. Oliver St John Gogarty who was a friend of Joyce, held that an epiphany is a showing fort of the mind in which one gave oneself away. 

It can be supposed that Joyce may have been developing the idea of epiphany for some time before 1898 because he wrote sketches which were similar in style to what Joyce implies for epiphany.