ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the analogous function performed by the recurring moments of silent revelation which litter Pirandello's narratives, the 'momenti di silenzio interiore' which 'L'umorismo' outlines. It argues that 'epiphanic' moments and recurring moments are often, ultimately, like the metaliterary poetics embodied in Pirandello's narrative use of the mirror. The chapter focuses on epiphany as a crucial element of Pirandello's narrative technique, which calls into question the idea of narrative chronology itself. It also argues that these moments are both intertextual and metatextual elements, which enact and reflect humoristic poetics and institute a dialogue between narrator, character and reader. The chapter asserts that tracing epiphanies at a thematic and formal level provides an interpretative key to Pirandellian narrative poetics. Pirandello's practice of autocitation, or self-plagiarism, in the form of passages duplicated throughout his work, takes on a particular significance in the (anti)descriptive segments which form his epiphanic moments.
