ABSTRACT
Epiphanies are widespread in narratives of very different kinds from widely separated cultures and periods; they can be found in ancient Greek epic and tragedy as well as in much modern fiction both before and after Joyce. Narrative ethics along with feminist ethics, hermeneutical bioethics, casuistry, and other new or revived approaches is today enjoying popularity as a counterpart, or correction, to what has come to be called 'principlist' ethics. It seems certain that there are dimensions of medical practice and medical ethics that might also be called 'epiphanic'. In ancient literature of the West, the epiphanic dimension of narrative mani- fests itself primarily through the divinities of the Greek or Roman pantheon. Narrative ethics often emphasizes the importance of attending to the patient's 'life-story'. But we should remember that every ethical decision marks the intersection of two stories, the patient's and the physician's, and epiphanic moments of imaginative insight or intuitive understanding occur in both.
