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Comment about Noble Savage

I have moved this criticism from the body of the article to the discussion page where it belonged instead of in a footnote (no. 17), where someone inserted it:

This comment is untrue. An idea of the "noble savage" --thought it may have differed from that of the British--certainly existed in the French colonial context. For more information about French racial thinking, see The Libertine Colony by Doris Garraway, There are No Slaves in France by Sue Peabody, The Avengers of the New World by Laurent Dubois, The French Atlantic Triangle by Christopher Miller. For information about the relationship between the French and English colonial contexts, see Sentimental Figures of Empire by Lynn Festa.

There is a misunderstanding here. The term "Noble Savage" is used now by scholars writing about French colonialism to refer to idealizing attitudes toward indigenous people. No one disputes that. However, the term "noble savage" was not used in French during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Although L'Escarbot did use the phrase: "The Savages are noble" as the heading of a chapter in his History of French Canada (c.1609), from where Dryden may have picked it up. The usual French term was and is: "le bon sauvage."

According to Ter Ellingson:

A few recent articles in French (e.g., Trudel 1996: 7ff.; Duvernay-Bolens 1998: 143) have abandoned the long-established bon sauvage in favor of a new expression, noble sauvage; and some German scholars use edle Wilde, “Noble Savage,” in place of gute Wilde, “good savage” (Bitterli 1976: 367 ff.; Sammer 1992: 932). Such cases seem obvious imitations of English usage, often arising in context of explicit references to English writers such as Berkhofer (1978 . . .) and Lovejoy and Boas . . .1935 ) in whose writings the “Noble Savage” plays a prominent role. Nor is it clear that the English-derived usage is moving toward a general acceptance in these languages, particularly in French; for many French languages continue to use bon sauvage (e.g.Todorov 1989; Doiron 1991; Guille-Escuret 1992), just as some (but perhaps fewer) German writers retain the term gute Wilde (e.g., Kohl 1981). Ellingson, The Myth of the Noble Savage (2001), p. 377

In the book by Doris Garraway, The Libertine Colony, the author explicitly states (in English) "I am going to use the term 'Noble Savage' to describe these settlers". She and the other writers cited above are using English, not French. See the wikipedia entry on Noble Savage.

In any case, no scholar of Rousseau argues that he used either the term or the concept. On the contrary. He did not idealize primitive peoples as his detractors have claimed. The discussion about racist attitudes toward colonial subjugated peoples belongs somewhere else.

Language and translation

Looking at all the discussions, it seems to me that there are and have been many, many misunderstandings because of the fact that most native English/American speakers have read Rousseau in English, and, moreover, that the basis for commentaries is formed by secondary sources. Seeing Damrosch, who indeed wrote a fine, but definitely not complete biography of Rousseau, ignores the hundreds of biographies written in French in the first place, and all the others written in dozens of other languages. Checking your facts is done by turning firstly to primary sources, not secondary ones, and written in the original language - many things are lost in translation, or just translated wrongly - and then the secondary ones. Checking facts when writing or commenting foreign personas is made easy by going to the Misplaced Pages-page in the relevant language.

Plutarch as an influence?

I have noticed that Plutarch is not listed as an influence. However, Rousseau cites Plutarch throughout his work; the only person who is referenced more by Rousseau is Plato.

In the Fourth Walk of his Reveries of a Solitary Walker, Rousseau says of Plutarch, “Among the small number of books that I still sometimes read, Plutarch is the one that grips and profits me the most. It was the first reading of my childhood; it will be the last of my old age; he is nearly the only author that I have never read without drawing from him some fruit."

In the Confessions, Rousseau recounts, “From these interesting readings ...was formed that free and republican spirit, that indomitable and proud character, impatient with the yoke and servitude which has tormented me my whole life in situations least appropriate for giving vent to it."

In a recent article in "The Rousseauian Mind" (2019), edited by Christopher Kelly and Eve Grace, called "Rousseau's Debt to Plutarch," Rebecca Kingston makes a compelling case that Plutarch was a foundational influence for Rousseau.

in popular culture

Verses of Rousseau are the subject of French language 1925 song setting A mes amis, les oiseaux by Australian classical composer Mona McBurney (1867-1932) Not sure where this fits in the article Tradimus (talk) 04:06, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

  1. McBurney, Mona; Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 1712-1778 (1925), Melodies, Ch. Hayet, retrieved 6 September 2019{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
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