A
noble savage is a literary
stock character who embodies the concept of an idealized
indigene, outsider, or "
other" who has not been "corrupted" by
civilization, and therefore symbolizes humanity's innate goodness. In English, the phrase first appeared in the 17th century in
John Dryden's heroic play
The Conquest of Granada (1672), wherein it was used in reference to newly created man. "Savage" at that time could mean "wild beast" as well as "wild man". The phrase 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 a satirical essay by English novelist
Charles Dickens, whom some believe may have wished to disassociate himself from what he viewed as the "feminine"
sentimentality of 18th and early 19th-century romantic
primitivism.