Making notes a while ago about Proust and Schopenhauer’s idea of the Will-less Subject, I wondered aloud how Joyce’s idea of epiphany might be related — was it something similar to the Proust/ Schopenhauer idea or something opposite? I tentatively came down in favor of the latter, but lamented that I didn’t know where to find a good definition of epiphany.
I’ve now chanced upon a pretty good account of it at the opening of Anthony Burgesses Re Joyce, who reproduces (pp.37) a definition from Stephen Hero:
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
Burgess, on the same page, goes on to describe a passage from A Portrait, in which it’s made reasonably clear that the artist’s active role is essential to the occurrence of the epiphanic. The artist separates an object from all others, this passage says, and, through careful consideration of its parts, enables its quidditas or whatness, to shine through; thus, through the artist, does “the object achieve its epiphany.”
Below, I’m reproducing Schopenhauer’s passage about the Will-less subject, which I’m aligning with Proust’s approach to art, but feel that whether you consider this approach similar or dissimilar to Joyce’s, in the end the question must remain a bit murky and dependent on how you define certain terms. (For example, what does Schopenhauer mean by “calm contemplation” below? Is it a “careful consideration of its parts” like in The Portrait?) There is the additional complication that Joyce’s expressed understanding of epiphany seems to have evolved over time. In spite of this –and in spite of how much more passive the Proust/ Schopenhauer idea may seem on its face– I’ve reversed my former opinion, and feel intuitively these ideas of art (in which can perhaps be included Marcel Duchamp’s “inframince” as well) suggest aspects of a similar approach.
Here, again, is World as Representation, 1.2.4, trans. Payne, pp.178:
“Further, we do not let abstract thought, the concepts of reason take possession of our consciousness, but instead of all this, devote the whole power of our mind to perception, sink ourselves completely therein, and let our whole consciousness be filled by the calm contemplation of the natural object actually present, whether it be a landscape, a tree, a rock, a crag, a building, or anything else. We lose ourselves entirely in this object to use a pregnant expression; in other words, we forget our individuality, our will, and continue to exist only as pure subject, as clear mirror of the object, so that it is as though the object alone existed without anyone to perceive it, and thus we are no longer able to separate the perceiver from the perception, but the two have become one, since the entire consciousness is filled and occupied by a single image of perception.”
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