Just use XNamespace
XNamespace content = "URI";
var items = XDocument.Parse(xml)
.Descendants("item")
.Select(i => new
{
Title = (string)i.Element("title"),
Description = (string)i.Element("description"),
Link = (string)i.Element("link"),
Encoded = (string)i.Element(content + "encoded"), //<-- ***
})
.ToList();