Different strategies are utilized by writers in order to promote enchantment. Two of the ways that I’m going to touch on today would be the use of dramatic irony and the separation of identities. With dramatic irony, readers are consumed by literary elements as their beliefs are challenged as the characters’ beliefs or experiences become their own. This experience as readers allows the questioning of identities to come into place, as readers have to learn how to navigate from their own identities and the ones established by the characters and narratives throughout the text. 

Enchantment is the path through which we travel through stories.

What Is Enchantment?

Enchantment is how we get lost in stories as readers. It’s how we allow ourselves to let go and become enveloped into the lives of characters. As people, we go through stress throughout our everyday lives. Some people find solace in gardening, some find it in swimming, and others find it in literature. The forms of literature that solace may be found in consist of novels, short stories, poems, plays, and other forms. Enchantment is the process that allows us to find solace by encouraging our minds to let go of stresses as we become consumed by the elements of a piece of literature ranging from its characters to its plot. 

I’m going to exemplify strategies of enchantment described above through Rita Felski’s Uses of Literature, Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, and Iser Wolfgang’s The Reading Process: A Phenomenological Approach. 

How the Texts Described Above Contribute To Enchantment: 

  • Rita Felski’s concepts of enchantment take play as Shakespeare takes readers outside of themselves and their world, and puts them into the characters and world of his Twelfth Night. 
  • Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night demonstrates enchantment as readers are engulfed with samples of dramatic irony. 
  • Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night demonstrates enchantment as readers are engulfed with samples of dramatic irony. 

The Process of Enchantment

Felski had stated, “Disoriented by the power of words, readers are no longer able to distinguish between reality and imagination” (Felski 23). With this, Felski had stressed that the effects of words used within texts have the power to blur the lines for us regarding what’s real and what isn’t. Twelfth Night’s reverse aspects for dramatic irony show this effect with readers. Reversed identities serve as a way to blur between what’s real and what’s not. 

The character Cesario is really a woman named Viola, who is in love with Orsino, who is in love with Olivia, while Olivia believes herself to be in love with Cesario(who readers know is really Viola). As readers find themselves enchanted into this world, they find themselves ping-ponging between identities and truths. 

Dramatic irony serves to confuse our truths as readers further with the conversation that would take place among these characters. 

In Act 2 of Twelfth Night, Orsino had asked “Cesario” in a conversation, “Hath stayed upon some favor that it loves. Hath it not, boy?” (Twelfth Night. 2. 27-28.).

Within this conversation, Orsino had asked “Cesario” about “his” love interest, little does he know that he himself is the love interest of “Cesario.” With Orsino believing Viola to be Cesario, readers fight with knowing Cesario is Cesario as they identify with Orsino, but fight with their own separate identities as readers knowing that Cesario is Orsino. 

Felski had stated, “The experience of being wrapped up in a novel or a film – whether “high” or “low” – confounds our deeply held beliefs about the rationality and autonomy of persons” (Felski 54). 

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That’s a quote to take home(or don’t…no pressure) for all of my quote-lovers out there. 

Felski notes how our experiences as readers through text challenge our own beliefs about the different identities among people, and question the rationality behind these identities. Shakespeare expands on this very notion with Twelfth Night, as with the conversation between Orsino and “Cesario,” concerning Cesario’s love interest. 

When Orsino had asked of the woman his “lad” was interested in, “Cesario” responded to Orsino with, “Of your complexion (Twelfth Night. 2. 31.).” 

Oh yeah, I bet “she” is of Orsino’s complexion. Come on, Orsino, that’s Olivia telling you she’s in love with you. Her facade of a guy can’t honestly be that good 🙄

Though, maybe it was. Viola had Duke fooled in that movie, didn’t she?

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“Cesario” is telling Orsino that he’s in love with a woman that has a similar complexion to him, though unbeknown to Orsino, he is that woman Cesario is describing. This confuses us as we all know that “Cesario” is confessing his love for a woman, while there’s another part of us that knows very well  that’s really our girl Viola confessing to clueless Orsino.

Wolfgang Iser dives deeper into this separation of identities. Iser had stated, “What is normally meant as “identification” is the establishment of affinities between oneself and someone outside oneself – a familiar ground on which we experience the unfamiliar” (Iser 1230).  

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Feel free to take that quote home too(or not, like I said…no pressure). 

Iser delves into how our identification with text consists of two separate entities between ourselves and someone who is being established by the text through the unfamiliar information we’re being fed. This unfamiliar information creates a breeding ground for the formation of the other “self” being created by the text.

Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night presents plenty of unfamiliar information that would force this form of identification on us with the unfamiliarity of the festive aspects presented through the characters’ own wavering  identities. 

After realizing Olivia’s love for “her,” Viola had stated to Malvolio, “What will become of this? As I am man, my state is desperate for my master’s love. As I am woman” (Twelfth Night. 2. 2. 36-38).

Viola had realized Olivia’s affections for “her,” though they were really of Cesario (because our girl Viola played a dude so well that Olivia fell in love who she thought was “Cesario” but really Olivia 💁) Viola was struggling with the realization of the identity she had on the outside as Cesario( who Olivia was in love with), and her inside identity as Viola who was in love with Orsino. 

This struggle resonates with our own struggles of the separation that takes place when we read, soaking in multiple identities from multiple characters. The struggle is REAL. 

I could be halfway through a book before remembering I’m not actually a Viking on my way to save my people 🧑‍🦯

Enchantment, Enchantment, Wherefore Art Thou Enchantment? 

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(Insert dramatic lovey-dovey music here)

As readers, enchantment will be everywhere. Enchantment will be everywhere we decide to go and everyone we decide to be when we open up a piece of literature. It’s what allows us to become so invested in stories and forget that we’re not actually the woman that Edward and Jacob are fighting over (Team Edward, by the way 🤚). 

Enchantment is what allows us to find peace in our stories, quotes, poems, and other forms of literature. Enchantment is what carries us through life as we find solace within the arts that literature provides. 

Whatever my insecurities in life, at least I know that enchantment will never ghost me.

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References

Felski, Rita. “Enchantment.” Uses of Literature. Blackwell Publishing. 2008. 

Iser, Wolfgang. “The Reading Process: A Phenomenological Approach.” The Act of Reading: A Theory of Aesthetic Response. Hopkins Press. 1978. 

Shakespeare, William. Twelfth Night. Edited by Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine. The Folger Shakespeare Library. 1932.