高貴野蠻人

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我們之所以稱他們為野蠻人，是因為他們的習俗和我們的不同。我們認為，我們的習俗是文明的。他們也會有同樣的想法。

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高貴野蠻人（英語：Noble savage，法語：Bon sauvage），是一種理想化的土著、外族或他者，尚未被文明「汙染」，因此代表著人類天生的良善，也是一種文學著作中的定型角色。

這個詞，在英語世界裡面，第一次出現在約翰·德萊頓的英雄詩劇（Heroic drama）征服格拉納達（The Conquest of Granada，1672年）中，劇中，一名偽裝為西班牙穆斯林的基督教親王，自稱為高貴野蠻人。不過，這個詞後來成為了對感傷主義（Sentimentalism）中的「天生紳士」（Nature's gentleman）的稱呼。1851年後，這個詞成為了修辭手法中的矛盾語。企圖切斷自己和18世紀「陰柔」的感傷主義和19世紀浪漫的原始主義（Primitivism）的聯繫的查爾斯·狄更斯就有一篇雜文，是以「高貴野蠻人」為題的。^[2]

注釋

^ Fryd, Vivien Green. Rereading the Indian in Benjamin West's "Death of General Wolfe". American Art. 1995, 9 (1): 75. JSTOR 3109196.
^ See Grace Moore, "Reappraising Dickens's 'Noble Savage'", The Dickensian 98:458 (2002): 236-243. Moore speculates that Dickens, although himself an abolitionist, was motivated by a wish to differentiate himself from what he believed was the feminine sentimentality and bad writing of female philanthropists and writer such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, with whom he, as a reformist writer, was often associated.

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[1] Fryd, Vivien Green. Rereading the Indian in Benjamin West's "Death of General Wolfe". American Art. 1995, 9 (1): 75. JSTOR 3109196.

[2] See Grace Moore, "Reappraising Dickens's 'Noble Savage'", The Dickensian 98:458 (2002): 236-243. Moore speculates that Dickens, although himself an abolitionist, was motivated by a wish to differentiate himself from what he believed was the feminine sentimentality and bad writing of female philanthropists and writer such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, with whom he, as a reformist writer, was often associated.

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