Affiliation:
1. Nord University, the University of Oslo
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.
Publisher
Amsterdam University Press