Editing Noble savage (section)

===Literature===
[[File:Southerne Oroonoko 1776 performance.jpg|thumb|upright|right|alt=Illustration of a 1776 performance of Oroonoko.|200px|In the stageplay ''Oroonoko: A Tragedy'' (1696), by Thomas Southerne, plot complications lead the protagonist Oroonoko to kill his beloved Imoinda.]]

The themes about the person and ''[[persona]]'' of the mythical noble savage are the subjects of the novel ''[[Oroonoko|Oroonoko: Or the Royal Slave]]'' (1688), by [[Aphra Behn]], which is the tragic love story between Oroonoko and the beautiful Imoinda, an African king and queen respectively. At [[Fort Amsterdam, Ghana|Coramantien]], Ghana, the protagonist is deceived and delivered into the [[Atlantic slave trade]] (16th–19th centuries), and Oroonoko becomes a slave of [[Plantation economy|plantation colonists]] in [[Surinam (Dutch colony)|Surinam]] (Dutch Guiana, 1667–1954). In the course of his enslavement, Oroonoko meets the woman who narrates to the reader the life and love of Prince Oroonoko, his enslavement, his leading a [[slave rebellion]] against the Dutch planters of Surinam, and his consequent execution by the Dutch colonialists.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Benítez-Rojo|first=Antonio|date=2018|title=The Caribbean: From a Sea Basin to an Atlantic Network|journal=The Southern Quarterly|volume=55|pages=196–206}}</ref>

Despite Behn having written the [[Popular culture|popular novel]] for money, ''Oroonoko'' proved to be political-protest literature against [[slavery]], because the story, plot, and characters followed the [[Narrative|narrative conventions]] of the European [[romance novel]]. In the event, the Irish playwright [[Thomas Southerne]] adapted the novel ''Oroonoko'' into the [[stage play]] ''Oroonoko: A Tragedy'' (1696) that stressed the [[pathos]] of the love story, the circumstances, and the characters, which consequently gave political importance to the play and the novel for the candid [[Representation (arts)|cultural representation]] of slave-powered European colonialism.