In Western anthropology, philosophy, and literature, the Myth of the Noble savage refers to a stock character who is uncorrupted by civilization. As such, the "noble" savage symbolizes the innate goodness and moral superiority of a primitive people living in harmony with Nature. In the heroic drama of the stageplay The Conquest of Granada by the Spaniards (1672), John Dryden represents the noble savage as an archetype of Man-as-Creature-of-Nature.
In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Astraea, also spelled Astrea or Astria, is a daughter of Astraeus and Eos. She is the virgin goddess of justice, innocence, purity, and precision. She is closely associated with the Greek goddess of justice, Dike, the daughter of Zeus and Themis. Astraea is not to be confused with Asteria, the goddess of the stars and the daughter of Coeus and Phoebe.
Aphra Behn was an English playwright, poet, prose writer and translator from the Restoration era. As one of the first English women to earn her living by her writing, she broke cultural barriers and served as a literary role model for later generations of women authors. Rising from obscurity, she came to the notice of Charles II, who employed her as a spy in Antwerp. Upon her return to London and a probable brief stay in debtors' prison, she began writing for the stage. She belonged to a coterie of poets and famous libertines such as John Wilmot, Lord Rochester. Behn wrote under the pastoral pseudonym Astrea. During the turbulent political times of the Exclusion Crisis, she wrote an epilogue and prologue that brought her legal trouble; she thereafter devoted most of her writing to prose genres and translations. A staunch supporter of the Stuart line, Behn declined an invitation from Bishop Burnet to write a welcoming poem to the new king William III. She died shortly after.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1696.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1695.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1694.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1688.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1677.
A libertine is a person questioning and challenging most moral principles, such as responsibility or sexual restraints, and will often declare these traits as unnecessary, undesirable or evil. A libertine is especially someone who ignores or even spurns accepted morals and forms of behaviour observed by the larger society. The values and practices of libertines are known collectively as libertinism or libertinage and are described as an extreme form of hedonism or liberalism. Libertines put value on physical pleasures, meaning those experienced through the senses. As a philosophy, libertinism gained new-found adherents in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, particularly in France and Great Britain. Notable among these were John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, and the Marquis de Sade.
Oroonoko: or, the Royal Slave is a work of prose fiction by Aphra Behn (1640–1689), first published in 1688 by William Canning and reprinted later that year in the compilation Three Histories by Mrs. A. Behn. The eponymous hero is an African prince from Coramantien who is tricked into slavery and sold to European colonists in Surinam where he meets the narrator. Behn's text is a first-person account of Oroonoko's life, love, and rebellion.
The Nordic race is an obsolete racial classification of humans based on a now-disproven theory of biological race. It was once considered a race or one of the putative sub-races into which some late-19th to mid-20th century anthropologists divided the Caucasian race, claiming that its ancestral homelands were Northwestern and Northern Europe, particularly to populations such as Anglo-Saxons, Germanic peoples, Balts, Baltic Finns, Northern French, and certain Celts, Slavs and Ghegs. The supposed physical traits of the Nordics included light eyes, light skin, tall stature, and dolichocephalic skull; their psychological traits were deemed to be truthfulness, equitability, a competitive spirit, naivete, reservedness, and individualism. In the early 20th century, the belief that the Nordic race constituted the superior branch of the Caucasian race gave rise to the ideology of Nordicism.
The Mediterranean race is an obsolete racial classification of humans based on the now-disproven theory of biological race. According to writers of the late 19th to mid-20th centuries it was a sub-race of the Caucasian race. According to various definitions, it was said to be prevalent in the Mediterranean Basin and areas near the Mediterranean and Black Sea, especially in Southern Europe, Eastern Europe, North Africa, most of West Asia, the Middle East or Near East; western Central Asia, parts of South Asia, and parts of the Horn of Africa. To a lesser extent, certain populations of people in Ireland, western parts of Great Britain, and Southern Germany, despite living far from the Mediterranean, were thought to have some minority Mediterranean elements in their population, such as Bavaria, Wales, and Cornwall.
The Alpine race is an obsolete racial classification of humans based on a now-disproven theory of biological race. It was defined by some late 19th-century and early 20th-century anthropologists as one of the sub-races of the Caucasian race. The origin of the Alpine race was variously identified. Ripley argued that it migrated from Central Asia during the Neolithic Revolution, splitting the Nordic and Mediterranean populations. It was also identified as descending from the Celts residing in Central Europe in Neolithic times. The Alpine race was described as having moderate stature, neotenous features, and specific cranial measurements, such as a high cephalic index.
William Zebina Ripley was an American economist, lecturer at Columbia University, professor of economics at MIT, professor of political economy at Harvard University, and anthropologist of race. Ripley was famous for his criticisms of American railroad economics and American business practices in the 1920s and 1930s, and later for his tripartite racial theory of Europe. His contribution to the anthropology of race was later taken up by racial physical anthropologists, eugenicists, white supremacists, Nordicists, and racists in general, and it was considered a valid academic work at the time, although today it is considered to be a prime example of scientific racism and pseudoscience.
Events from the year 1688 in England. This was the year of the Glorious Revolution that overthrew King James II.
Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister is a three-volume roman à clef by Aphra Behn playing with events of the Monmouth Rebellion and exploring the genre of the epistolary novel. The first volume, published in 1684, lays some claim to be the first English novel. Some scholars claim that the attribution to Behn remains in dispute. The novel is "based loosely on an affair between Ford, Lord Grey of Werke, and his wife's sister, Lady Henrietta Berkeley, a scandal that broke in London in 1682". It was originally published as three separate volumes: Love-Letters Between a Noble-Man and his Sister (1684), Love-Letters from a Noble Man to his Sister: Mixt with the History of Their Adventures. The Second Part by the Same Hand (1685), and The Amours of Philander and Silvia (1687). The copyright holder was Joseph Hindmarsh, later joined by Jacob Tonson.
Coromantee, Coromantins, Coromanti or Kormantine is an English-language term for enslaved people from the Akan ethnic group, taken from the Gold Coast region in modern-day Ghana.
The Fair Jilt: or, the Amours of Prince Tarquin and Miranda is a short novella by Aphra Behn published by Will Canning in 1688, a year before Behn's death. The plot is loosely based around rumors Behn had heard regarding a story of Prince Francisco de Tarquini. Though Behn did insist that the story was true, it is sensationalized. The story follows a woman named Miranda who, slighted by the rejection of a priest, accuses him of rape. After Miranda marries Prince Tarquin, the story observes their series of deceptive acts and multiple murder attempts instigated by the passions of love and desire. The Fair Jilt occupies itself with themes of deceit, infatuation, and impassioned acts of love, common ideas within the amatory fiction genre. Behn herself introduces the story as a study of the destructive power of love.
The Jewish nose, also known as the Jew's nose and the Middle Eastern nose, is an antisemitic ethnic stereotype referring to a nose with a prominent convex bridge, downward nasal tip and relatively broad nostrils. It was singled out as a hostile caricature of Jews in mid-13th century Europe and has since become a defining and persisting element of the overall Jewish stereotype globally. In modern times, it has also been adopted by Jews as a part of their identity to spite historic antisemitism.
