Neohelicon
Volume/Issue:
Volume 29: Issue 1
In Search of the Noble Savage: Some Romantic Cases
Author:
Gerald Gillespie Stanford University Building 240 Stanford CA 94305-2030 USA Building 240 Stanford CA 94305-2030 USA

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Pages:
89–95
Online Publication Date:
02 Nov 2004
Publication Date:
01 Sep 2002
Article Category:
Research Article
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1023/a:1015691211878
Restricted access

Abstract  

The idea of the noble savage is as early as Oroonoko; or, The Royal Slave (1688), a novel by Aphra Behn, or Friday, the cannibal in Robinson Crusoe(1719).In Chateaubriand's major novels with New World settings it mirrors European yearning for naivet and purity. In Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales both the “white savage” Natty Bumppo and his friend, the Indian chief, Chingachgook are destined to be outmoded by historical forces. An early novel, Typee: A Peep at Polyneasian Life during a Four Months' Residence in a Valley of the Marquesas, by Herman Melville discloses that the Typee way of life is not very conducive to upholding the European myth of the noble savage. Robert Louis Stevenson's relative success in falling into the embrace of the South Seas when he settled in Samoa is contrasted with Paul Gauguin's contradictory search for Rousseauesque refuge in a primitive culture and his yearning for recognition as an artist by European contemporaries. The idea of the noble savage has been a productive misprision or cultural lie in many respects but today its lingering clich supports a superannuated hord of lesser Gauguins.

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Cover Neohelicon
Neohelicon
Print ISSN:
0324-4652
Online ISSN:
1588-2810

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Neohelicon
Language English
Size B5
Year of
Foundation		 1973
Volumes
per Year		 1
Issues
per Year		 2
Founder Akadémiai Kiadó
Founder's
Address		 H-1117 Budapest, Hungary 1516 Budapest, PO Box 245.
Publisher Akadémiai Kiadó
Springer Nature Switzerland AG
Publisher's
Address		 H-1117 Budapest, Hungary 1516 Budapest, PO Box 245.
CH-6330 Cham, Switzerland Gewerbestrasse 11.
Responsible
Publisher		 Chief Executive Officer, Akadémiai Kiadó
ISSN 0324-4652 (Print)
ISSN 1588-2810 (Online)

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