| Abstract: | Abstract This paper examines the cultural, scientific and poetic life of ambergris in the seventeenth century, in the context of contemporary theories about smell, and changing attitudes to style and expression. Most widely used as an ingredient in perfumery, this mysterious substance (now known to be the pathological secretion of a sperm whale) attracted significant interest: natural philosophers speculated on its origin, and imaginative writers used it as a trope for the exotic and the powerfully ephemeral. In surveying the appearance of ambergris in natural philosophical writings (including the proceedings of the Royal Society, and works by Browne and Boyle), as well as in botanical treatises, recipe books, travellers’ narratives, and lyric poetry, this paper seeks to recover a sense of the forgotten olfactory codings of the past. It ends with an attempt to place ambergris within the highly nuanced vocabulary of scent employed by Robert Herrick, the most distinguished nose of the early modern age. |
