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| Henri Matisse, 1935 |
"Now by my life, mankind again! But who?
Savages, are they, strangers to courtesy?
Or gentle folk, who know and fear the gods?"
Odysseus is awakened by the sound of shouts from Nausicaa and her maids. His first thought: savages, or gentle folk?
We'll find this anxiety – friend or foe? – reiterated throughout the semester, whether in More's Utopia, Montaigne's essays, Shakespeare's Tempest, Defoe's Crusoe, Equiano's Interesting Narrative, Cook's voyages, Coleridge's Rime, Bishop's poems, or Coetzee's Foe.