The Enchantment of English is a study of the teaching of English in Australian universities, from its beginnings in the second half of the 19th century through to the 1960s and 1970s, a period in which universities proliferated and diversified. Written from the belief that every discipline is enhanced by understanding the arguments made for its existence and the conditions in which it was established, the author aims to help students and colleagues to think critically about the impact of institutional location in forming our habits of mind. Amidst these stories of politics, critical debates, scrambling for appointments in specific areas and disputes about the need to satisfy the demands of students and the public for 'usefulness', this history reveals something intangible but durable: the power of the literary text over the imagination, and the power of the idea of England and its writers as a basis and motive for reading and study - hence, The Enchantment of English.

Discusses England's long and fascinating history (from its earliest settlement thousands of years ago to its modern status as part of the United Kingdom), its rich culture, beautiful landscapes, and diverse cities.

Winner of the National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award "A charming book about enchantment, a profound book about fairy tales."—John Updike, The New York Times Book Review Bruno Bettelheim was one of the great child psychologists of the twentieth century and perhaps none of his books has been more influential than this revelatory study of fairy tales and their universal importance in understanding childhood development. Analyzing a wide range of traditional stories, from the tales of Sindbad to “The Three Little Pigs,” “Hansel and Gretel,” and “The Sleeping Beauty,” Bettelheim shows how the fantastical, sometimes cruel, but always deeply significant narrative strands of the classic fairy tales can aid in our greatest human task, that of finding meaning for one’s life.

In Enchantment, Orson Scott Card works his magic as never before, transforming the timeless story of Sleeping Beauty into an original fantasy brimming with romance and adventure. The moment Ivan stumbled upon a clearing in the dense Carpathian forest, his life was forever changed. Atop a pedestal encircled by fallen leaves, the beautiful princess Katerina lay still as death. But beneath the foliage a malevolent presence stirred and sent the ten-year-old Ivan scrambling for the safety of Cousin Marek's farm. Now, years later, Ivan is an American graduate student, engaged to be married. Yet he cannot forget that long-ago day in the forest—or convince himself it was merely a frightened boy’s fantasy. Compelled to return to his native land, Ivan finds the clearing just as he left it. This time he does not run. This time he awakens the beauty with a kiss . . . and steps into a world that vanished a thousand years ago. A rich tapestry of clashing worlds and cultures, Enchantment is a powerfully original novel of a love and destiny that transcend centuries . . . and the dark force that stalks them across the ages.

In a small Minnesota town, a tale of love and intrigue whose protagonist is Lily Dahl, a young actress. The cafe where she works is a meeting place for eccentrics and a New York artist who has come to paint them, with whom Lily has an affair. But one customer is a murderer and Lily turns sleuth.

Shakespeare and the Comedy of Enchantment argues that enchantment constitutes a key emotional and intellectual dimension of Shakespeare's comedies. It thus makes a new claim about the rejuvenating value of comedy for individuals and society. Shakespeare's comedies orchestrate ongoing encounters between the rational and the mysterious, between doubt and fascination, with feelings moved by elements of enchantment that also seem a little ridiculous. In such a drama, lines of causality become complex, and even satisfying endings leave certain matters incomplete and contingent—openings for scrutiny and thought. In addressing enchantment, the book takes exception to the modernist vision of a deterministic 'disenchanted' world. As Shakespeare's action advances, comic mysteries accrue—uncanny coincidences; magical sympathies; inexplicable repetitions; psychic influences; and puzzlements about the meaning of events—all of whose numinous effects linger ambiguously after reason has apparently answered the play's questions. Separate chapters explore the devices, tropes, and motifs of enchantment: magical clowns who alter the action through stop-time interludes; structural repetitions that suggest mysteriously converging, even opaquely providential destinies; locales that oppose magical and protean forces to regulatory and quotidian values; desires, thoughts, and utterances that 'manifest' comically monstrous events; characters who return from the dead, facilitated by the desires of the living; play-endings crossed by harmony and dissonance, with moments of wonder that make possible the mysterious action of forgiveness. Wonder and wondering in Shakespeare's and other comedies, it emerges, become the conditions for new possibilities. Chapters refer extensively to early modern history, Renaissance and modern theories of comedy, treatises on magical science, and contemporaneous Italian and Tudor comedy.