Anagnorisis
Anagnorisis is a moment of recognition or discovery in a narrative work, the point at which a character moves from ignorance to knowledge, often accompanied by an emotional epiphany. Derived from Aristotle's Poetics, the term names the structural moment when the truth of a situation, a relationship, or an identity is suddenly revealed to the character (and often to the audience simultaneously). In Taylor's writing anagnorisis appears when the speaker experiences a sudden, emotionally charged realisation, typically about the endurance of love, the truth of memory, or the identity of someone returning from the past.
Anagnorisis concentrates the song's emotional weight into a single moment of realisation, making the recognition itself the event the song has been building toward. The device turns an internal shift in understanding into the song's dramatic climax, and the force lies in the gap between what the speaker knew before and what she knows now.
Appears in 1 song
“I remembered I loved you”
Uncle Jerry explicitly identifies this moment as anagnorisis, 'the Greek word for to know. It is a moment of recognition.' He describes it as 'a moment of recognition in a poetic work' and calls it 'an emotional epiphany', 'a moment of sudden realisation.' He connects this literary device to the song's themes of memory and recognition.
The anagnorisis is the emotional core of the song, the sudden realisation that love endures despite time and distance. It connects to the title's dual recognition ('I knew it' = recognition of truth; 'I knew you' = recognition of identity).