noble savage
English
Etymology
First appeared in John Dryden's heroic play The Conquest of Granada (1672), where it was used by the son of a Christian prince, believing himself a Spanish Muslim, in reference to himself.
Noun
noble savage (plural noble savages)
- (literature) A stock character embodying the concept of an idealized indigene or outsider who has not been corrupted by civilization and therefore symbolizes humanity's innate goodness.
- 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 34, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, OCLC 57395299, page 167:
- It seemed hardly possible that by such comparatively small mouthfuls he could keep up the vitality diffused through so broad, baronial, and superb a person. But, doubtless, this noble savage fed strong and drank deep of the abounding element of air; and through his dilated nostrils snuffed in the sublime life of the worlds.
- 1876, Richard F. Burton, Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo, volume 1, London:
- The Isángú, or Ingwánba, the craving felt after a short abstinence from animal food, does not spare the white traveller more than it does his dark guides; and, though the moral courage of the former may resist the "gastronomic practice" of breaking fast upon a fat young slave, one does not expect so much from the untutored appetite of the noble savage.
- 1911, J[ames] M[atthew] Barrie, Peter and Wendy, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, OCLC 1036598118:
- It is written that the noble savage must never express surprise in the presence of the white.
- 1914, Joseph Conrad, Chance, London: Methuen, OCLC 697654812, page 283:
- This is like one of those Red-skin stories where the noble savages carry off a girl and the honest backwoodsman with his incomparable knowledge follows the track and reads the signs of her fate in a footprint here, a broken twig there, a trinket dropped by the way.
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Translations
stock character
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