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VESPUCCI'S LETTER MUNDUS NOVUS AND THE LEGEND OF ROUSSEAU'S NATURAL MAN

The paper aims to apprehend in the letter Mundus Novus of Vespucci a human profile in which the individual variability and the level of civilization can be reduced, through abstraction, to the general form of the "savage", determined to exploit hedonistically the environment, making himself exempt from any barrier found in the edification of the civilized life. This profile seems akin to the idea of the "savage" plausibly devised by Rousseau as a source of the feeling of existence.

Vespucci; the savage in Mundus Novus ; the legend of the natural man


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