Noble Savage (Paperback)

High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles The term noble savage (French, bon sauvage), expresses the concept an idealized indigene, outsider (or "other"), and refers to the literary stock character of the same. In English the phrase first appeared in the 17th century in John Dryden's heroic play, The Conquest of Granada (1672), where it was used by a Christian prince disguised as a Spanish Muslim to refer to himself, but it 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 oxymoronic rhetorical device after 1851, when used sarcastically as the title for satirical essay by English novelist Charles Dickens, who wished to disassociate himself from 18th and early 19th-century romantic primitivism.