«You saved her life and she adores you for it»: The female noble savage in the English melodrama of the 1860s

Abstract

The origin of the «noble savage» dates back to 1672, when John Dryden identified in the uncivilised «savage» the qualities of purity and carelessness. Later, the French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau (1754) defined the noble savage as an innocent, uncorrupted being. Even though the noble savage has been usually represented as man, we can also find female noble savages in literature. This article examines the representation of the female noble savage in London’s sensation drama of the mid-nineteenth century. We first propose to review the figures of both the male and female noble savages, considering also their popular iconography. We offer then two case studies: the anonymous works Cahontas, the Delaware’s Daughter (1860) and The Prairie Flower (1860). The protagonists of these Western plays will give us the opportunity to explore the representation and public perception of the female noble savage.

Keywords

• noble savage
• female noble savage
• melodrama
• sensation plays
• theatre