高贵野蛮人

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我们之所以称他们为野蛮人，是因为他们的习俗和我们的不同。我们认为，我们的习俗是文明的。他们也会有同样的想法。

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高贵野蛮人（英语：Noble savage，法语：Bon sauvage），是一种理想化的土著、外族或他者，尚未被文明“污染”，因此代表着人类天生的良善，也是一种文学著作中的定型角色。

这个词，在英语世界里面，第一次出现在约翰·德莱顿的英雄诗剧（Heroic drama）征服格拉纳达（The Conquest of Granada，1672年）中，剧中，一名伪装为西班牙穆斯林的基督教亲王，自称为高贵野蛮人。不过，这个词后来成为了对感伤主义（Sentimentalism）中的“天生绅士”（Nature's gentleman）的称呼。1851年后，这个词成为了修辞手法中的矛盾语。企图切断自己和18世纪“阴柔”的感伤主义和19世纪浪漫的原始主义（Primitivism）的联系的查尔斯·狄更斯就有一篇杂文，是以“高贵野蛮人”为题的。^[2]

注释

^ 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.

这是一篇小作品。您可以通过编辑或修订扩充其内容。

[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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