Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Part I Introduction
- Part II Medicinal and Sacred Drugs
- Part III Divine Blood for Sale
- Appendix I ‘Rariteiten te koop’
- Appendix II Family and business network of Joannes Six van Chandelier
- Bibliography
- General index
- Index of poems by Joannes Six van Chandelier
- Plate Section
1 - Theory and reception
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 November 2020
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Part I Introduction
- Part II Medicinal and Sacred Drugs
- Part III Divine Blood for Sale
- Appendix I ‘Rariteiten te koop’
- Appendix II Family and business network of Joannes Six van Chandelier
- Bibliography
- General index
- Index of poems by Joannes Six van Chandelier
- Plate Section
Summary
Abstract
In the seventeenth century, the Dutch Republic dominated global trade. Historical research has stressed the positive effects of exchanges of goods and knowledge. In literary criticism, the merchant-poet Joannes Six van Chandelier (1620–1695) is similarly presented as a poet with an interest in the material world. But Six’s work includes a number of poems on exotic materials that not yet have been examined. These texts show that global trade, to a greater extent than previously understood, gave rise to a certain moral anxiety. I argue that Six’s approach to exotics drugs is therefore determined by a process of self-criticism, but that it also contributed to an important shift in early modern science, from drug lore based on mythical concepts, to botany based on experience and observation.
Keywords: Global trade, early modern, poetry, exotic drugs, history of science, botany
[I]t gives me […] pleasure to watch the ships arriving, laden with all the produce of the Indies and all the rarities of Europe. Where else on earth could you find, as easily as you do here, all the conveniences of life and all the curiosities you could hope to see?
– Descartes in Amsterdam‘Rarities for Sale’
‘Rariteiten te koop’ (‘Rarities for Sale’) (J158) is one of the most remarkable poems of Dutch literature. I will therefore use this poem as a point of entry to the study of Six’s poetry. The text was printed in the collected poems of the merchant-poet Joannes Six van Chandelier, Poësy (1657). The poem was printed in red ink, and thus attracts the reader’s attention at once (Plate 1). ‘Rariteiten te koop’ probably refers to more exotica than any other literary text in the early modern Dutch Republic. And that’s not all: the poem introduces a new item that surpasses all these exotica: an eccentric substance that has an irresistible appeal to Dutch consumers. The text, which comprises 162 lines, is a panegyric to a new, and until then unknown, commodity that has appeared on the market. The text begins, ‘Maar nu is, op Hollands stroomen, / In myn handen, stof gekomen,/Ongehoort, en ongesien’ (‘But now, there has come a commodity onto Dutch streams, and in my hands, /which no one has heard of or seen before’) (l. 7–9).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Dangerous DrugsThe Self-Presentation of the Merchant-Poet Joannes Six van Chandelier (1620–1695), pp. 19 - 62Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2020