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A noble savage is a literary
stock character A stock character, also known as a character archetype, is a fictional character in a work of art such as a novel, play, or a film whom audiences recognize from frequent recurrences in a particular literary tradition. There is a wide range of st ...
who embodies the concept of the indigene, outsider, wild human, an "
other Other often refers to: * Other (philosophy), a concept in psychology and philosophy Other or The Other may also refer to: Film and television * ''The Other'' (1913 film), a German silent film directed by Max Mack * ''The Other'' (1930 film), a ...
" who has not been "corrupted" by
civilization A civilization (or civilisation) is any complex society characterized by the development of a state, social stratification, urbanization, and symbolic systems of communication beyond natural spoken language (namely, a writing system). Ci ...
, and therefore symbolizes humanity's innate goodness. Besides appearing in many works of fiction and
philosophy Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...
, the
stereotype In social psychology, a stereotype is a generalized belief about a particular category of people. It is an expectation that people might have about every person of a particular group. The type of expectation can vary; it can be, for example ...
was also heavily employed in early
anthropological Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...
works. In English, the phrase first appeared in the 17th century in
John Dryden '' John Dryden (; – ) was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who in 1668 was appointed England's first Poet Laureate. He is seen as dominating the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the per ...
's heroic play ''
The Conquest of Granada ''The Conquest of Granada'' is a English Restoration, Restoration era stage play, a two-part tragedy written by John Dryden that was first acted in 1670 in literature, 1670 and 1671 in literature, 1671 and published in 1672 in literature, 1672. ...
'' (1672), wherein it was used in reference to newly created man. "Savage" at that time could mean "wild beast" as well as "wild man". The phrase later became identified with the idealized picture of "nature's gentleman", which was an aspect of 18th-century sentimentalism. The noble savage achieved prominence as an
oxymoron An oxymoron (usual plural oxymorons, more rarely oxymora) is a figure of speech that juxtaposes concepts with opposing meanings within a word or phrase that creates an ostensible self-contradiction. An oxymoron can be used as a rhetorical devi ...
ic rhetorical device after 1851, when used sarcastically as the title for a satirical essay by English novelist
Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...
, who some believe may have wished to disassociate himself from what he viewed as the "feminine"
sentimentality Sentimentality originally indicated the reliance on feelings as a guide to truth, but in current usage the term commonly connotes a reliance on shallow, uncomplicated emotions at the expense of reason. Sentimentalism in philosophy is a view in ...
of 18th- and early 19th-century romantic
primitivism Primitivism is a mode of aesthetic idealization that either emulates or aspires to recreate a "primitive" experience. It is also defined as a philosophical doctrine that considers "primitive" peoples as nobler than civilized peoples and was an o ...
. In his ''Inquiry Concerning Virtue'' (1699), the 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury had postulated that the moral sense in humans is natural and innate and based on feelings, rather than resulting from the indoctrination of a particular
religion Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, ...
. Shaftesbury was reacting to
Thomas Hobbes Thomas Hobbes ( ; 5/15 April 1588 – 4/14 December 1679) was an English philosopher, considered to be one of the founders of modern political philosophy. Hobbes is best known for his 1651 book ''Leviathan'', in which he expounds an influent ...
's justification of an absolutist central state in his ''
Leviathan Leviathan (; he, לִוְיָתָן, ) is a sea serpent noted in theology and mythology. It is referenced in several books of the Hebrew Bible, including Psalms, the Book of Job, the Book of Isaiah, the Book of Amos, and, according to some ...
'', "Chapter XIII", in which Hobbes famously holds that the state of nature is a "war of all against all" in which men's lives are "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short". Hobbes further calls the Native Americans an example of a contemporary people living in such a state. Although writers since antiquity had described people living in conditions outside contemporary definitions of "civilization", Hobbes is credited with inventing the term "State of Nature". Ross Harrison writes that "Hobbes seems to have invented this useful term." Contrary to what is sometimes believed,
Jean-Jacques Rousseau Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolu ...
never used the phrase ''noble savage'' (French '' bon sauvage''). However, the archetypical character that would later be termed ''noble savage'' appeared in French literature at least as early as Jacques Cartier (explorer of
Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...
, speaking of the
Iroquois The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of First Nations peoples in northeast North America/ Turtle Island. They were known during the colonial years to ...
) and Michel de Montaigne (philosopher, speaking of the Tupinambá) in the 16th century.


Pre-history of the noble savage

Tacitus Publius Cornelius Tacitus, known simply as Tacitus ( , ; – ), was a Roman historian and politician. Tacitus is widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman historiography, Roman historians by modern scholars. The surviving portions of his t ...
' ''De origine et situ Germanorum'' (''Germania''), written 98 AD, has been described as a predecessor of the modern noble savage concept, which started in the 17th and 18th centuries in
western European Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's countries and territories vary depending on context. The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the ancient Mediterranean ...
travel literature The genre of travel literature encompasses outdoor literature, guide books, nature writing, and travel memoirs. One early travel memoirist in Western literature was Pausanias, a Greek geographer of the 2nd century CE. In the early modern period ...
.
Ibn Tufail Ibn Ṭufail (full Arabic name: ; Latinized form: ''Abubacer Aben Tofail''; Anglicized form: ''Abubekar'' or ''Abu Jaafar Ebn Tophail''; c. 1105 – 1185) was an Arab Andalusian Muslim polymath: a writer, Islamic philosopher, Islamic theolo ...
's 12th-century novel ''
Hayy ibn Yaqdhan ''Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān'' () is an Arabic philosophical novel and an allegorical tale written by Ibn Tufail (c. 1105 – 1185) in the early 12th century in Al-Andalus. Names by which the book is also known include the ('The Self-Taught Philosop ...
'' provides an important antecedent to the concept of the noble savage. Written to explore the idea of
natural theology Natural theology, once also termed physico-theology, is a type of theology that seeks to provide arguments for theological topics (such as the existence of a deity) based on reason and the discoveries of science. This distinguishes it from ...
, the novel sees the main character, a savage isolated from society, come to knowledge of God through the observation of nature. The book would come to inspire and influence many Enlightenment thinkers, among them
Thomas Hobbes Thomas Hobbes ( ; 5/15 April 1588 – 4/14 December 1679) was an English philosopher, considered to be one of the founders of modern political philosophy. Hobbes is best known for his 1651 book ''Leviathan'', in which he expounds an influent ...
,
John Locke John Locke (; 29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704) was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "father of liberalism ...
,
Christiaan Huygens Christiaan Huygens, Lord of Zeelhem, ( , , ; also spelled Huyghens; la, Hugenius; 14 April 1629 – 8 July 1695) was a Dutch mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and inventor, who is regarded as one of the greatest scientists of ...
,
Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author (described in his time as a "natural philosopher"), widely recognised as one of the grea ...
and
Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and ...
.
Samar Attar Samar ( ) is the third-largest and seventh-most populous island in the Philippines, with a total population of 1,909,537 as of the 2020 census. It is located in the eastern Visayas, which are in the central Philippines. The island is divided in ...
, ''The Vital Roots of European Enlightenment: Ibn Tufayl's Influence on Modern Western Thought'', Lexington Books, .
Following the discovery of America, the phrase "savage" for indigenous peoples was used disparagingly to justify the
colonization of the Americas During the Age of Discovery, a large scale European colonization of the Americas took place between about 1492 and 1800. Although Norse colonization of North America, the Norse had explored and colonized areas of the North Atlantic, colonizin ...
. The concept of the savage gave Europeans the supposed right to establish colonies without considering the possibility of preexisting, functional societies. During the late 16th and 17th centuries, the figure of the "savage"—and later, increasingly, the "good savage"—was held up as a reproach to European civilization, then in the throes of the
French Wars of Religion The French Wars of Religion is the term which is used in reference to a period of civil war between French Catholic Church, Catholics and Protestantism, Protestants, commonly called Huguenots, which lasted from 1562 to 1598. According to estim ...
and
Thirty Years' War The Thirty Years' War was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (80 ...
. In his famous essay " Of Cannibals" (1580), Michel de Montaigne—himself a Catholic—reported that the
Tupinambá people The Tupinambá are one of the various Tupi ethnic groups that inhabited present-day Brazil since before the conquest of the region by Portuguese colonial settlers. In the first years of contact with the Portuguese, the Tupinambás lived in the wh ...
of Brazil ceremoniously eat the bodies of their dead enemies as a matter of honour. However, he reminded his readers that Europeans behave even more barbarously when they burn each other alive for disagreeing about religion (he implies): "One calls 'barbarism' whatever he is not accustomed to." Terence Cave comments: In "Of Cannibals", Montaigne uses
cultural Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and Social norm, norms found in human Society, societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, Social norm, customs, capabilities, and habits of the ...
(but not
moral A moral (from Latin ''morālis'') is a message that is conveyed or a lesson to be learned from a story or event. The moral may be left to the hearer, reader, or viewer to determine for themselves, or may be explicitly encapsulated in a maxim. A ...
)
relativism Relativism is a family of philosophical views which deny claims to objectivity within a particular domain and assert that valuations in that domain are relative to the perspective of an observer or the context in which they are assessed. Ther ...
for the purpose of satire. His cannibals were neither noble nor exceptionally good, but neither were they suggested to be morally inferior to contemporary 16th-century Europeans. In this classical
humanist Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and agency of human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. The meaning of the term "human ...
portrayal,
customs Customs is an authority or agency in a country responsible for collecting tariffs and for controlling the flow of goods, including animals, transports, personal effects, and hazardous items, into and out of a country. Traditionally, customs ...
may differ but human beings in general are prone to cruelty in various forms, a quality detested by Montaigne. David El Kenz explains: The treatment of indigenous peoples by Spanish
Conquistador Conquistadors (, ) or conquistadores (, ; meaning 'conquerors') were the explorer-soldiers of the Spanish and Portuguese Empires of the 15th and 16th centuries. During the Age of Discovery, conquistadors sailed beyond Europe to the Americas, O ...
s also produced a great deal of bad conscience and recriminations. The Spanish priest
Bartolomé de las Casas Bartolomé de las Casas, OP ( ; ; 11 November 1484 – 18 July 1566) was a 16th-century Spanish landowner, friar, priest, and bishop, famed as a historian and social reformer. He arrived in Hispaniola as a layman then became a Dominican friar ...
, who witnessed it, may have been the first to idealize the simple life of the indigenous Americans. He and other observers praised their simple manners and reported that they were incapable of lying, especially in the course of the
Valladolid debate The Valladolid debate (1550–1551) was the first moral debate in European history to discuss the rights and treatment of an indigenous people by European colonizers. Held in the Colegio de San Gregorio, in the Spanish city of Valladolid, it was ...
. European angst over
colonialism Colonialism is a practice or policy of control by one people or power over other people or areas, often by establishing colonies and generally with the aim of economic dominance. In the process of colonisation, colonisers may impose their relig ...
inspired fictional treatments such as Aphra Behn's novel ''
Oroonoko ''Oroonoko: or, the Royal Slave'' is a work of prose fiction by Aphra Behn (1640–1689), published in 1688 by William Canning and reissued with two other fictions later that year. It was also adapted into a play. The eponymous hero is an Afri ...
, or the Royal Slave'' (1688), about a
slave revolt A slave rebellion is an armed uprising by enslaved people, as a way of fighting for their freedom. Rebellions of enslaved people have occurred in nearly all societies that practice slavery or have practiced slavery in the past. A desire for freed ...
in Surinam in the
West Indies The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greater A ...
. Behn's story was not primarily a protest against
slavery Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
; rather, it was written for money, and it met readers' expectations by following the conventions of the European
romance novel A romance novel or romantic novel generally refers to a type of genre fiction novel which places its primary focus on the relationship and romantic love between two people, and usually has an "emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending." Pre ...
la. The leader of the revolt, Oroonoko, is truly noble in that he is a hereditary African prince, and he laments his lost African homeland in the traditional terms of a classical
Golden Age The term Golden Age comes from Greek mythology, particularly the ''Works and Days'' of Hesiod, and is part of the description of temporal decline of the state of peoples through five Ages of Man, Ages, Gold being the first and the one during ...
. He is not a savage but dresses and behaves like a European
aristocrat The aristocracy is historically associated with "hereditary" or "ruling" social class. In many states, the aristocracy included the upper class of people (aristocrats) with hereditary rank and titles. In some, such as ancient Greece, ancient Ro ...
. Behn's story was adapted for the stage by Irish playwright
Thomas Southerne Thomas Southerne (12 February 166026 May 1746) was an Irish dramatist. Biography Thomas Southerne, born on 12 February 1660, in Oxmantown, near Dublin, was an Irish dramatist. He was the son of Francis Southerne (a Dublin brewer) and Margar ...
, who stressed its sentimental aspects, and as time went on, it came to be seen as addressing the issues of slavery and colonialism, remaining very popular throughout the 18th century.


Origin of term

In English, the phrase ''Noble Savage'' first appeared in poet
John Dryden '' John Dryden (; – ) was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who in 1668 was appointed England's first Poet Laureate. He is seen as dominating the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the per ...
's heroic play, ''
The Conquest of Granada ''The Conquest of Granada'' is a English Restoration, Restoration era stage play, a two-part tragedy written by John Dryden that was first acted in 1670 in literature, 1670 and 1671 in literature, 1671 and published in 1672 in literature, 1672. ...
'' (1672):
I am as free as nature first made man, Ere the base laws of servitude began, When wild in woods the noble savage ran.
The hero who speaks these words in Dryden's play is here denying the right of a prince to put him to death, on the grounds that he is not that prince's subject. These lines were quoted by Scott as the heading to Chapter 22 of his "A Legend of Montrose" (1819). "Savage" is better taken here in the sense of "wild beast", so that the phrase "noble savage" is to be read as a witty conceit meaning simply the beast that is above the other beasts, or man. Ethnomusicologist Ter Ellingson believes that Dryden had picked up the expression "noble savage" from a 1609 travelogue about Canada by the French explorer
Marc Lescarbot Marc Lescarbot (c. 1570–1641) was a French author, poet and lawyer. He is best known for his '' Histoire de la Nouvelle-France'' (1609), based on his expedition to Acadia (1606–1607) and research into French exploration in North America. ...
, in which there was a chapter with the ironic heading: "The Savages are Truly Noble", meaning simply that they enjoyed the right to hunt game, a privilege in France granted only to hereditary aristocrats. It is not known if Lescarbot was aware of Montaigne's stigmatization of the aristocratic pastime of hunting, though some authors believe he was familiar with Montaigne. Lescarbot's familiarity with Montaigne, is discussed by Ter Ellingson in ''The Myth of the Noble Savage''. In Dryden's day the word "savage" did not necessarily have the connotations of cruelty now associated with it. Instead, as an adjective, it could as easily mean "wild", as in a wild flower, for example. Thus he wrote in 1697, "the savage cherry grows". One scholar,
Audrey Smedley Audrey Smedley (1930 – October 14, 2020) was an American social anthropologist and professor emeritus at Virginia Commonwealth University in anthropology and African-American studies. Early life and education Smedley received her BA and MA in ...
, claimed that "English conceptions of 'the savage' were grounded in expansionist conflicts with
Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...
pastoralists and more broadly, in isolation from, and denigration of neighboring European peoples." and Ellingson agrees that "The ethnographic literature lends considerable support for such arguments". In France the stock figure that in English is called the "noble savage" has always been simply "le bon sauvage", "the good wild man", a term without any of the paradoxical frisson of the English one. Montaigne is generally credited for being at the origin of this myth in his
Essays An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal a ...
(1580), especially "Of Coaches" and "Of Cannibals". This character, an idealized portrayal of "Nature's Gentleman", was an aspect of 18th-century sentimentalism, along with other stock characters such as, the Virtuous Milkmaid, the Servant-More-Clever-than-the-Master (such as
Sancho Panza Sancho Panza () is a fictional character in the novel ''Don Quixote'' written by Spanish author Don Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra in 1605. Sancho acts as squire to Don Quixote and provides comments throughout the novel, known as ''sanchismos'', ...
and Figaro, among countless others), and the general theme of virtue in the lowly born. The use of stock characters (especially in theater) to express moral truths derives from classical antiquity and goes back to
Theophrastus Theophrastus (; grc-gre, Θεόφραστος ; c. 371c. 287 BC), a Greek philosopher and the successor to Aristotle in the Peripatetic school. He was a native of Eresos in Lesbos.Gavin Hardy and Laurence Totelin, ''Ancient Botany'', Routledge ...
's ''Characters'', a work that enjoyed a great vogue in the 17th and 18th centuries and was translated by
Jean de La Bruyère Jean de La Bruyère (, , ; 16 August 1645 – 11 May 1696) was a French philosopher and moralist, who was noted for his satire. Early years Jean de La Bruyère was born in Paris, in today's Essonne ''département'', in 1645. His family was mi ...
. The practice largely died out with advent of 19th-century
realism Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to: In the arts *Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts Arts movements related to realism include: *Classical Realism *Literary realism, a move ...
but lasted much longer in genre literature, such as adventure stories, Westerns, and, arguably, science fiction. Nature's Gentleman, whether European-born or exotic, takes his place in this cast of characters, along with the Wise Egyptian, Persian, and Chinaman. "But now, alongside the Good Savage, the Wise Egyptian claims his place." Some of these types are discussed by Paul Hazard in ''The European Mind''. He had always existed, from the time of the ''
Epic of Gilgamesh The ''Epic of Gilgamesh'' () is an epic poetry, epic poem from ancient Mesopotamia, and is regarded as the earliest surviving notable literature and the second oldest religious text, after the Pyramid Texts. The literary history of Gilgamesh ...
'', where he appears as
Enkidu Enkidu ( sux, ''EN.KI.DU10'') was a legendary figure in ancient Mesopotamian mythology, wartime comrade and friend of Gilgamesh, king of Uruk. Their exploits were composed in Sumerian poems and in the Akkadian ''Epic of Gilgamesh'', writte ...
, the wild-but-good man who lives with animals. Another instance is the untutored-but-noble medieval knight,
Parsifal ''Parsifal'' ( WWV 111) is an opera or a music drama in three acts by the German composer Richard Wagner and his last composition. Wagner's own libretto for the work is loosely based on the 13th-century Middle High German epic poem ''Parzival'' ...
. The
Biblical The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...
shepherd boy
David David (; , "beloved one") (traditional spelling), , ''Dāwūd''; grc-koi, Δαυΐδ, Dauíd; la, Davidus, David; gez , ዳዊት, ''Dawit''; xcl, Դաւիթ, ''Dawitʿ''; cu, Давíдъ, ''Davidŭ''; possibly meaning "beloved one". w ...
falls into this category. The association of virtue with withdrawal from society—and specifically from cities—was a familiar theme in religious literature. ''
Hayy ibn Yaqdhan ''Ḥayy ibn Yaqẓān'' () is an Arabic philosophical novel and an allegorical tale written by Ibn Tufail (c. 1105 – 1185) in the early 12th century in Al-Andalus. Names by which the book is also known include the ('The Self-Taught Philosop ...
,'' an Islamic philosophical tale (or
thought experiment A thought experiment is a hypothetical situation in which a hypothesis, theory, or principle is laid out for the purpose of thinking through its consequences. History The ancient Greek ''deiknymi'' (), or thought experiment, "was the most anc ...
) by
Ibn Tufail Ibn Ṭufail (full Arabic name: ; Latinized form: ''Abubacer Aben Tofail''; Anglicized form: ''Abubekar'' or ''Abu Jaafar Ebn Tophail''; c. 1105 – 1185) was an Arab Andalusian Muslim polymath: a writer, Islamic philosopher, Islamic theolo ...
from 12th-century
Andalusia Andalusia (, ; es, Andalucía ) is the southernmost Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community in Peninsular Spain. It is the most populous and the second-largest autonomous community in the country. It is officially recognised as a ...
, straddles the divide between the religious and the secular. The tale is of interest because it was known to the New England Puritan divine,
Cotton Mather Cotton Mather (; February 12, 1663 – February 13, 1728) was a New England Puritan clergyman and a prolific writer. Educated at Harvard College, in 1685 he joined his father Increase as minister of the Congregationalist Old North Meeting H ...
. Translated into English (from Latin) in 1686 and 1708, it tells the story of Hayy, a wild child, raised by a gazelle, without human contact, on a deserted island in the Indian Ocean. Purely through the use of his reason, Hayy goes through all the gradations of knowledge before emerging into human society, where he revealed to be a believer of
natural religion Natural religion most frequently means the "religion of nature", in which God, the soul, spirits, and all objects of the supernatural are considered as part of nature and not separate from it. Conversely, it is also used in philosophy to describe s ...
, which Cotton Mather, as a Christian Divine, identified with
Primitive Christianity Restorationism (or Restitutionism or Christian primitivism) is the belief that Christianity has been or should be restored along the lines of what is known about the apostolic early church, which restorationists see as the search for a purer a ...
. The figure of Hayy is both a Natural man and a Wise Persian, but not a Noble Savage. The ''
locus classicus {{Short pages monitor *
Anarcho-primitivism Anarcho-primitivism is an anarchist critique of civilization (anti-civ) that advocates a return to non-civilized ways of life through deindustrialization, abolition of the division of labor or specialization, and abandonment of large-scale organ ...
*
Racism in the work of Charles Dickens The topic of racism in the work of Charles Dickens has been discussed in scholarly circles, increasingly so in the 20th and 21st centuries. While Charles Dickens, Dickens was known to be highly sympathetic to the plight of the poor and disadvant ...
* ''Essays'' (Montaigne) *
Exoticism Exoticism (from "exotic") is a trend in European art and design, whereby artists became fascinated with ideas and styles from distant regions and drew inspiration from them. This often involved surrounding foreign cultures with mystique and fantas ...
*
Jean-Jacques Rousseau Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolu ...
*
Native Americans in German popular culture Native Americans in German popular culture have, since the 18th century, been a topic of fascination, with imaginary Native Americans influencing German ideas and attitudes towards environmentalism, literature, art, historical reenactment, and ...
**
Native American hobbyism in Germany Native Americans in German popular culture have, since the 18th century, been a topic of fascination, with imaginary Native Americans in the United States, Native Americans influencing German ideas and attitudes towards environmentalism, litera ...
* Natural state *
Neotribalism Neotribalism, also known as modern tribalism or new tribalism, is a sociological concept which postulates that human beings have evolved to live in tribal society, as opposed to mass society, and thus will naturally form social networks constitu ...
*
Objectification In social philosophy, objectification is the act of treating a person, as an object or a thing. It is part of dehumanization, the act of disavowing the humanity of others. Sexual objectification, the act of treating a person as a mere object of sex ...
*
Orientalism In art history, literature and cultural studies, Orientalism is the imitation or depiction of aspects in the Eastern world. These depictions are usually done by writers, designers, and artists from the Western world. In particular, Orientalist p ...
*
Othering In phenomenology, the terms the Other and the Constitutive Other identify the other human being, in their differences from the Self, as being a cumulative, constituting factor in the self-image of a person; as acknowledgement of being real; h ...
*
Pelagianism Pelagianism is a Christian theological position that holds that the original sin did not taint human nature and that humans by divine grace have free will to achieve human perfection. Pelagius ( – AD), an ascetic and philosopher from t ...
*
Positive stereotype In social psychology, a positive stereotype refers to a subjectively favourable belief held about a social group. Common examples of positive stereotypes are Asians with better math ability, African Americans with greater athletic ability, and wom ...
* State of nature *
Stereotypes about indigenous peoples of North America Stereotypes of Indigenous peoples of Canada and the United States of America include many ethnic stereotypes found worldwide which include historical misrepresentations and the oversimplification of hundreds of Indigenous cultures. Negative stere ...
* Racial fetishism *
Romantic racism Romantic racism is a form of racism in which members of a dominant group project their fantasies onto members of oppressed groups. Feminist scholars have accused Norman Mailer,Breines, Wini (1992). ''Young, White, and Miserable: Growing up Female ...
*
Virtuous pagan Virtuous pagan is a concept in Christian theology that addressed the fate of the unlearned—the issue of nonbelievers who were never evangelized and consequently during their lifetime had no opportunity to recognize Christ, but nevertheless ...
* Wild child *
Wild man The wild man, wild man of the woods, or woodwose/wodewose is a mythical figure that appears in the art and literature of medieval Europe, comparable to the satyr or faun type in classical mythology and to '' Silvanus'', the Roman god of the woodl ...
*
Human zoo Human zoos, also known as ethnological expositions, were public displays of people, usually in a so-called "natural" or "primitive" state. They were most prominent during the 19th and 20th centuries. These displays sometimes emphasized the sup ...
*
Uncontacted peoples Uncontacted peoples are groups of indigenous peoples living without sustained contact with neighbouring communities and the world community. Groups who decide to remain uncontacted are referred to as indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation. ...
* Isolationism Concepts: *
Cultural relativism Cultural relativism is the idea that a person's beliefs and practices should be understood based on that person's own culture. Proponents of cultural relativism also tend to argue that the norms and values of one culture should not be evaluated ...
*
Golden Age The term Golden Age comes from Greek mythology, particularly the ''Works and Days'' of Hesiod, and is part of the description of temporal decline of the state of peoples through five Ages of Man, Ages, Gold being the first and the one during ...
* Master-slave dialectic *
Social progress Progress is the movement towards a refined, improved, or otherwise desired state. In the context of progressivism, it refers to the proposition that advancements in technology, science, and social organization have resulted, and by extension wi ...
* State of nature *
Xenocentrism Xenocentrism is the preference for the cultural practices of other cultures and societies, such as how they live and what they eat, rather than of one's own social way of life. One example is the romanticization of the noble savage in the 18th-cen ...
Cultural examples: * * ''The Blue Lagoon'' (novel) * ''
Brave New World ''Brave New World'' is a dystopian novel by English author Aldous Huxley, written in 1931 and published in 1932. Largely set in a futuristic World State, whose citizens are environmentally engineered into an intelligence-based social hierarch ...
'' * ''A High Wind in Jamaica'' (novel) *
Legend of the Rainbow Warriors Since the early 1970s, a legend of Rainbow Warriors has inspired some environmentalists and hippies with a belief that their movement is the fulfillment of a Native American prophecy. Usually the "prophecy" is claimed to be Hopi or Cree. How ...
* ''
Lord of the Flies ''Lord of the Flies'' is a 1954 novel by the Nobel Prize-winning British author William Golding. The plot concerns a group of British boys who are stranded on an uninhabited island and their disastrous attempts to govern themselves. Themes ...
'' *
Magical Negro The Magical Negro is a trope in American cinema, television, and literature. In the cinema of the United States, the Magical Negro is a supporting stock character who comes to the aid of white protagonists in a film. Magical Negro characters, w ...
* Plastic Shaman


References

Informational notes Citations Further reading * Barnett, Louise. ''Touched by Fire: the Life, Death, and Mythic Afterlife of George Armstrong Custer''. University of Nebraska Press
986 Year 986 ( CMLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * August 17 – Battle of the Gates of Trajan: Emperor Basil II leads a Byz ...
2006. *
Barzun, Jacques Jacques Martin Barzun (; November 30, 1907 – October 25, 2012) was a French-American historian known for his studies of the history of ideas and cultural history. He wrote about a wide range of subjects, including baseball, mystery novels, and ...
(2000). ''
From Dawn to Decadence ''From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life'' is a book written by Jacques Barzun. Published in 2000, it is a large-scale survey history of trends in history, politics, culture, and ideas in Western civilization, and argues that, ...
: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, 1500 to the Present''. New York: HarperCollins. pp. 282–294, and passim. * Bataille, Gretchen, M. and Silet Charles L., editors. Introduction by Vine Deloria, Jr. ''The Pretend Indian: Images of Native Americans in the Movies''. Iowa State University Press, 1980* Berkhofer, Robert F. "The White Man's Indian: Images of the American Indian from Columbus to the Present" * Boas, George ( 9331966). '' The Happy Beast in French Thought in the Seventeenth Century.'' Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press. Reprinted by Octagon Press in 1966. * Boas, George (
948 Year 948 ( CMXLVIII) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * Arab–Byzantine War: Hamdanid forces under Sayf al-Dawla raid into Asia Minor ...
1997). ''Primitivism and Related Ideas in the Middle Ages''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press. * Bordewich, Fergus M. "Killing the White Man's Indian: Reinventing Native Americans at the End of the Twentieth Century" * Bury, J.B. (1920)
''The Idea of Progress: an Inquiry into its Origins and Growth''
(Reprint) New York: Cosimo Press, 2008. * Edgerton, Robert (1992). ''Sick Societies: Challenging the Myth of Primitive Harmony.'' New York: Free Press. * Edwards, Brendan Frederick R. (2008
"'He Scarcely Resembles the Real Man': images of the Indian in popular culture".
Website
''Our Legacy''
Material relating to First Nations, Metis, and Inuit, found in Saskatchewan cultural and heritage collections. * Ellingson, Ter. (2001). ''The Myth of the Noble Savage'' (Berkeley, CA.: University of California Press). * Fabian, Johannes. ''Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes its Object'' * Fairchild, Hoxie Neale (1928). ''The Noble Savage: A Study in Romantic Naturalism'' (New York) * Fitzgerald, Margaret Mary (
947 Year 947 ( CMXLVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Europe * Summer – A Hungarian army led by Grand Prince Taksony campaigns in Italy, heading ...
1976). ''First Follow Nature: Primitivism in English Poetry 1725–1750''. New York: Kings Crown Press. Reprinted New York: Octagon Press. * * Hazard, Paul (
937 Year 937 ( CMXXXVII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Europe * A Hungarian army invades Burgundy, and burns the city of Tournus. Then they go southward ...
1947). ''The European Mind (1690–1715)''. Cleveland, Ohio: Meridian Books. * Keeley, Lawrence H. (1996) ''
War Before Civilization ''War Before Civilization: the Myth of the Peaceful Savage'' (Oxford University Press, 1996) is a book by Lawrence H. Keeley, a professor of archaeology at the University of Illinois at Chicago who specialized in prehistoric Europe. The book de ...
: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage''. Oxford: University Press. * Krech, Shepard (2000). ''The Ecological Indian: Myth and History.'' New York: Norton. * LeBlanc, Steven (2003). ''Constant battles: the myth of the peaceful, noble savage''. New York : St Martin's Press * Lovejoy, Arthur O. (1923, 1943). "The Supposed Primitivism of Rousseau's Discourse on Inequality, " Modern Philology Vol. 21, No. 2 (Nov., 1923):165–186. Reprinted in ''Essays in the History of Ideas''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1948 and 1960. * Lovejoy, A. O. and Boas, George (
935 Year 935 ( CMXXXV) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Europe * Spring – Arnulf I ("the Bad") of Bavaria invades Italy, crossing through the Upper ...
1965). ''Primitivism and Related Ideas in Antiquity.'' Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press. Reprinted by Octagon Books, 1965. * Lovejoy, Arthur O. and George Boas. (1935). ''A Documentary History of Primitivism and Related Ideas'', vol. 1. Baltimore. * Moore, Grace (2004). ''Dickens And Empire: Discourses Of Class, Race And Colonialism In The Works Of Charles Dickens (Nineteenth Century Series)''. Ashgate. * Olupọna, Jacob Obafẹmi Kẹhinde, Editor. (2003) ''Beyond primitivism: indigenous religious traditions and modernity''. New York and London:
Routledge Routledge () is a British multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanities, behavioural science, education, law, and ...
. , * Pagden, Anthony (1982). ''The Fall of the Natural Man: The American Indian and the origins of comparative ethnology''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. * Pinker, Steven (2002). '' The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature''. Viking * Sandall, Roger (2001). ''The Culture Cult: Designer Tribalism and Other Essays'' * Reinhardt, Leslie Kaye
"British and Indian Identities in a Picture by Benjamin West"
''Eighteenth-Century Studies'' 31: 3 (Spring 1998): 283–305 * Rollins, Peter C. and John E. O'Connor, editors (1998). ''Hollywood's Indian : the Portrayal of the Native American in Film.'' Lexington, Kentucky: University of Kentucky Press. * Tinker, Chaunchy Brewster (1922). ''Nature's Simple Plan: a phase of radical thought in the mid-eighteenth century''. New Jersey: Princeton University Press. * Torgovnick, Marianna (1991). ''Gone Primitive: Savage Intellects, Modern Lives'' (Chicago) * Whitney, Lois Payne (1934). ''Primitivism and the Idea of Progress in English Popular Literature of the Eighteenth Century''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press * Wolf, Eric R.(1982). ''Europe and the People without History''. Berkeley: University of California Press.


External links


Massacres during the Wars of Religion: The St. Bartholomew's Day massacre: a foundational event

Louis Menand. "What Comes Naturally". A review of Steven Pinker's ''The Blank Slate'' from ''The New Yorker''

Peter Gay. "Breeding is Fundamental". ''Book Forum''. April / May 2009
{{DEFAULTSORT:Noble Savage Stock characters Multiculturalism Anthropology Cultural concepts Anti-indigenous racism Ethnic and racial stereotypes Western (genre) staples and terminology