Abstract: “Enchantment” is undergoing a reassessment across several disciplines. Against traditional fears associated with enchantment, contemporary scholars such as Rita Felski, Jane Bennett, and Akeel Bilgrami link it to the potential for developing ethical relationships and attitudes toward our work as literary scholars, our world, and others. In this essay I argue that the writing of Henry David Thoreau is especially useful for a contemporary revaluation of enchantment because in his writing, enchantment does “delude and disable” us. Rather, Thoreau asks us to think about enchantment as an embodied, material experience that, as he puts it, “attunes” us to the universe. I tease out the dynamics of this “attunement” and argue that for him enchantment is, importantly, linked to hearing rather than seeing. This emphasis on sound in his writing raises three issues for ongoing discussions about enchantment. First, Thoreau’s writing draws on the idioms of sound and music to develop a concept of enchantment that is embodied. This choice distinguishes him not only from Emerson and his transparent eyeball, but from the longstanding emphasis on seeing and its association with truth in the western tradition. Second, we are called to reframe the supposed loss of self control commonly associated with enchantment, as well as reconsider the importance of self control in Thoreau’s writing. To Thoreau, enchantment holds us open to the ambiguity of existence wherein we are neither master nor mastered. Finally, I argue that Thoreau’s writing provocatively insists that chance is perhaps the most crucial condition of possibility for enchantment. Ultimately I argue that attention to the way Thoreau employs enchantment in his writing not only complicates our understanding of his thought, but also points us to a rich textual ground in which to continue cultivating our renewed interest in enchantment and its potential.

中文翻译：

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声音的魅力：亨利·大卫·梭罗的案例

摘要：“附魔”正在跨多个学科进行重新评估。与结界有关的传统恐惧，Rita Felski，Jane Bennett和Akeel Bilgrami等当代学者将其与发展道德关系和对我们作为文学学者，我们的世界以及其他人的工作的态度联系起来。在本文中，我认为亨利·戴维·梭罗（Henry David Thoreau）的著作对于当代对结界的重估特别有用，因为结界在他的著作中确实“欺骗和残害”了我们。相反，梭罗要求我们将结界视为一种体现的物质体验，正如他所说的那样，它使我们“适应”宇宙。我嘲笑这种“调和”的动力，并认为对他而言，结界重要的是与听而不是看相关。在他的著作中对声音的强调为正在进行的关于结界的讨论提出了三个问题。首先，梭罗的著作借鉴了声音和音乐的习语，以发展出一种体现的附魔概念。这种选择不仅使他与爱默生和透明的眼球区别开来，而且与长期以来在西方传统中对视觉及其与真理的联系的强调有所不同。其次，我们被要求重新构想通常与结界有关的自我控制的丧失，并重新考虑自我控制在梭罗著作中的重要性。对梭罗来说，结界使我们对存在的模棱两可持开放态度，在这种模棱两可的情况下，我们既不是大师也不是大师。最后，我认为梭罗的著作挑衅地坚持认为，机会可能是附魔可能性的最关键条件。