Smell and Culture

So, I don't have time to post regularly. What a surprise! But I can at least post my work, so there will be some stuff up here. Perhaps over the semester break I'll be able to actually converse with myself a little. But, till then...

SMELL AND CULTURE

Ooooh, that smell
Can't you smell that smell
Ooooh, that smell – Lynyrd Skynyrd


Introduction: Smell is Everywhere
A small, blonde four-year old was riding around in the back of a 1972 yellow Volkswagen Beetle. Suddenly, a pungent, eye-watering odor filled the car. She wrinkled up her nose: “What’s that, Mommy?”
“That’s a skunk. I love that smell!” her mother replied. The little girl took a long, stinging sniff.
“Me, too!” she sighed happily, and drifted back into her imagination.
Why do I like skunk smell? Was it because my mother told me she liked it – was my odor preference shaped by the power of influence? Is it genetic – do my olfactory bulbs send a different signal to my brain than other people? Is it psychological, or emotional – my mom felt happy when she smelled a skunk – did I pick up on that? Or is it biological, something in my ancient caveman ancestors that preconditioned me to enjoy the smell of a skunk? These sorts of questions are what have prompted me to explore smell, and the more I read about it, the more I find that the unanswered questions are myriad – which, of course, prompts my curiosity even further.

Smell is powerful. Odors can affect us on physical, psychological, and social levels. They can trigger intense memories, and strong emotional responses. They are, according to Constance Classen, “essential cues in social bonding” (3). But, smell is the most undervalued sense in the Western world. Why? Some attribute it to the fact that the human sense of smell is “feeble and atrophied” in comparison with its importance among animals (Classen 2). Others feel that smell is too mysterious to really study effectively – smells cannot be named or recorded, captured or stored. We must make do with description and recollections when dealing with olfaction (Classen 3). Diane Ackerman, in her Natural History of the Senses, explains: “When we use words such as smoky, sulfurous, floral, fruity, sweet, we are describing smells in terms of other things. Smells are our dearest kin, but we cannot remember their names. Instead we tend to describe how they make us fell. Something smells ‘disgusting, intoxicating, sickening, pleasurable, delightful, pulse revving, hypnotic, or revolting” (7). A few sensory studies scholars attribute our cultural devaluation of smell to the hierarchy of the senses that took place during the 18th and 19th centuries, as philosophers equated reason and civilization with sight, and smell, the basest and most primitive sense, with savagery and filth (Classen 3). Some researchers even think that smell is considered “threatening to a social order”, and thereby perceived as dangerous for several reasons: it reveals inner truth; it reacts with interiors, rather than surfaces, as one does with sight; it cannot be contained, it can escape and cross boundaries – this, Classen explains, is “opposed to our linear worldview with emphasis on privacy, discrete divisions, and superficial interactions” (4). Accompanying Classen’s comment is the notion that smell is invasive – one can shut out the other senses, but smell pervades almost anyone who breathes, whether its wanted or not. Smell goes inside the body and into the brain – it stimulates reactions, memories, emotions, and one cannot help but let it. Some may resist learning about and understanding smell simply because it makes them uncomfortable. Rachel Herz notes a reason that some scientists ignore smell, explaining that some research psychologists and neuroscientists claim that the “physical properties of odors are hard to precisely control, and the responses to them are subjective; therefore, studying smell is ‘unscientific’” (23). Finally, smell has been viewed as frivolous and irrelevant for hundreds of years, likely because of a combination of the reasons above. Smell has not been taken seriously in scholarship, and has instead become the stuff of children’s books and scratch ‘n’ sniff stickers. This should not be the case. Classen, as part of a research project called “The Varieties of Sensory Experience” based at Concordia University, Montreal (1988 to 1991), notes: “The intimate, emotionally charged nature of the olfactory experience ensures that such value-coded odors are interiorized by the members of society in a deeply personal way. The study of the cultural history of smell is, therefore, an investigation into the essence of human culture” (3). This is what I wish to explore – what is significant culturally about smell? How has the past shaped the way Western culture devalues smell – when did this begin, and why? Why is smell, as Classen says, in the realm of “the Western scholarly and cultural unconscious”, and why does it need to become part of academic study? If we learn more about smell, how will our understanding of sensory perception and of culture in general change? These questions perhaps cannot be answered to my satisfaction because we are still so primitive in our understanding of how smell works, both biologically and psychologically. But smell is also cultural – and its historical and social significance can be examined and evaluated, perhaps providing insight into some of the mysteries of this elusive sense. So, with much help from Constance Classen, and her Cultural History of Smell, I’d like to venture on a brief tour of smell in the Western world – from the Ancient Greeks and Romans to modernity.
The Ancient Olfactory World
In Ancient Greece and Rome, scent was used for everything, everywhere. The streets and homes (and people) of the Ancient World teemed with odors, and their smells had impact on status, perception, health, class, and social values. The Greeks and Romans got their extensive use of perfumes from the East, primarily Egypt and Persia. While scents were essentially the same for men and women, the citizens would create “olfactory wardrobes” for themselves, wearing different scents on their hair, breast, legs, and feet (Classen 17). Their homes were perfumed – the walls and floors smattered with perfumed unguent, the wood in the fireplaces scented when it was cold outside; cushions were filled with herbs, creating a deeply fragrant, and sometimes cacophonous, odor symphony (Classen 18). Their perfumes were prepared in a variety of ways in order to have more uses – oils, dry powders, thick ointments, and incense, not just liquids. Interestingly, the literal meaning of the word “perfume” is “through smoke”.
The perfumes of the ancients were mostly derived from their gardens and both men and women created exotic blends for diversion. Classen gives a few examples, which include ingredients such as lilies, honey, cinnamon, saffron, myrrh, balsam, reed, behen nut, cassia, wild grape, lotus and marjoram (15). Just as today, perfumes came and went in popularity. Pliny writes: “The first thing proper to know about perfumes, is that their importance changes” (qtd. in Classen 15). For a time, an iris perfume from Corinth was all the rage, but then a vine-flower scent from Cyzicus became popular, and later, marjoram based scent from Cos (Classen 15).
Class distinctions often dictated the amount and intensity of perfume choices, and the ancient world is where some of the stereotypes regarding scent began. Rich people smelled good, poor people smelled bad. Odor classes developed, because the rich could afford perfumes, and the poor couldn’t. Tradesmen often were classified as ill scented, as they wore the perfumes of their trade – tanners and fishmongers were characterized as foul because of the scents associated with their work (Classen 34). Martial mentions the disgust felt around such people in his Epigrams: “Upon you all the neighborhood presses, upon you the bristly farmer with a kiss like a he-gat, on this side the weaver crowds you, on that the fuller, on this the cobbler who has just been kissing his hide” (qtd. in Classen 34).
The class distinctions also applied to city and country dwellers. One might think that the natural, fragrant countryside would have olfactory preference, but the ancients seem to judge smell based on the inhabitants rather than the surroundings. City dwellers felt that their “rustic counterparts” were “uncouth bumpkins stinking of goats and garlic” (Classen 34). In Clouds, Aristophanes defines himself and his wife by their olfactory identities, explaining that he was from the county, “reeking of the dregs of the wine-cup, of cheese and wool”, and his city-wife was “redolent with essences, saffron, voluptuous kisses, the love of spending” (qtd. in Classen 34).
Literal odors weren’t the only means of classification, however – many distinctions were made on a symbolic level (Classen 35). The wealthy were fragrant not just because of perfumes, but because of their high status in society; the poor because of their low status. For women, the most prominent classification was that desirable women were fragrant and undesirable women stank. Older women and prostitutes smelled rank, whereas courtesans and young brides were fragrant. Fragrant women could also be dangerous – as in the case of the seductress Cleopatra, or the mythological Circe, with her many perfumes and potions (Classen 37). To some extent, however, even though beautiful women could exude sweet-smelling fragrance, all women were viewed as foul smelling. Lucretius writes that even the most lovely women “reek of noisome smells” when alone (Classen 38). This, Classen feels, is because of the ancient association of women with the moon, (“th’ inconstant moon”, as Juliet would say) which was representative of corruption. Men, being connected with the sun, smelled great, as the sun was traditionally viewed as producing sweet-smelling scents (38). In literature, daily life, and societal assumptions, olfaction in the ancient world was used to pass value judgments. This, Classen notes, “would have been a potent aide to maintaining different classes in their ‘proper’ place in the social order” (38).
Another fascinating aspect of the ancient olfactory world is that philosophers speculated upon the mysterious nature of smell, introducing some of the ideas that still are associated with olfactory studies. Personal odor was of great concern to the philosophers, as exemplified in this quote from Aristotle’s Problemata: “Why has the armpit a more unpleasant odour than any other part of the body…and why is it that those who have a rank odour are more unpleasant when they anoint themselves with unguents?” (qtd. in Classen 30). Plato pondered the ephemeral nature of smell, writing that odours were “half-formed”, being thinner than water and rougher than air, making them difficult to name or classify (Classen 48). Plato also discussed the power of smell, alluding to its danger, in the Republic: “When the other appetites, buzzing about it, replete with incense and myrrh and chaplets and wine…awaken in the drone the sting of unsatisfied yearning, why then this protector of the soul had madness for his bodyguard and runs amuck” (qtd. in LeGuerer 144). Both Plato and Aristotle seemed to agree that odors should be enjoyed aesthetically, but not carnally. Aristotle comments: “We do not qualify those who derive pleasure from the odors of apples or roses as unbalanced, but we do describe as unbalanced those who relish the odors of unguent or culinary preparations, for unbalanced person derive pleasure from the fact that such odors remind them of the objects of their concupiscence” (qtd. in LeGuerur 145). Lucretius thought about the differences between pleasant and unpleasant odours, explaining that pleasant sensations were composed of smooth particles and foul smells and unpleasant situation of hooked particles (Classen 48). Interestingly, the notions of smell molecules having shapes is still one of the foremost theories in how we perceive smell, though the newer explanations now seems to relate to the vibrations of the molecules rather than the shapes (Turin). While the ancient writings about smells are limited, records show that the ancient world was acutely aware of odors on both literal and symbolic levels.
The Middle Ages to Modernity
It seems, perhaps, overambitious to lump olfaction in the 4th century with ideas of the 20th, and I questioned Classen’s decision to do so as I read her book – but they are connected so well, and the progression of early Christianity’s notions of smell feed almost directly into the way we view smell today. There also have been several hundred years of scent being virtually ignored, so there’s not a whole lot to say about the time period in the middle. It appears, though, that the devaluation, even the repression of smell began with the rise of Christianity.
Christians were told to avoid scent for several reasons: Incense was viewed as part of the “trappings of idolatry”, or “food for demons” (Classen 51). This is due in part to the fact that many Christians were executed for refusing to burn incense before the image of the emperor in order to show their loyalty. Perfumes were viewed as sensual, a “frivolous luxury tending to debauchery”, and even bathing was discouraged, as Christians had to guard against “pagan sensuality”. Christians were proud to smell of dirt and sweat, as these are the scents given to the human body by God (Classen 51).
One exception to this aversion to odor in Christianity was the “odor of sanctity” (Classen 53). Just as the ancient Greeks and Romans believed that that gods possessed a sweet odor and made their presence known through fragrance, Christians believed that a mystical fragrance signaled the presence of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, an exceptionally holy person would have this scent. Priest were thought to have a sweet odor also because of Paul’s statement in 2 Corinthians 2:15: “We are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved” (qtd. in Classen 52). The odour of sanctity was especially noticed at the time of death, and many saints are said to have emitted sweet aromas when they died. Of course, the sweet smells of those holy ones was a stark contrast to the typical foul odours associated with death, showing how God had the power to place certain chosen ones outside of the natural decay of the body (Classen 53).
One of the prominent contributors to olfaction in the Middle Ages is that people believed the plague was transmitted by scent. Martin Luther thought that evil spirits poisoned the air, and those who inhaled the evil air fell victims to the plague. This was supported by the fact that victims of the plague had a particularly strong smell. This did, however, resurrect some of the ancient customs associated with scent, as people felt the need to rid themselves of this dangerous odor by drowning it out with other scents. People used aromatic woods, juniper, laurel, rosemary; they even used less pleasant, but appropriately pungent smells, such as vinegar and old shoes, or keeping goats in the house to eliminate the evil plague odors. Outside the home, people wore “olfactory prophylactics” when they went outside, made up of an orange stuck with cloves, or a bad of spices (Classen 60). In some cases, while unintentional, these did have medicinal value. While they couldn’t really stop the plague, some of their ingredients, such as lavender and garlic, were effective germicides. They used these methods not just to prevent disease, but to cure it, as Classen explains: “Contemporary medical theory held that the nose gave direct access to the brain. Medications inhaled through the nose, therefore, were reputed to act more directly on the brain, hence the spirit, than those swallowed. Furthermore, the spirit, or life force, was imagined to be similar in nature to odour, making smell the best means of correcting its disorders” (61).
As odors began to creep back into daily life because of the plague, perfumery began to rise again in popularity. 16th century home-dwellers are said to have used perfume in their homes by placing herbs on the floor, scenting water with roses, and perfuming bed linen. Perfume was also resurrected in food, and scented banquets were held wherein spice plates were passed among the guests. Perfumes were thought not just to mask unpleasant odors, but completely dispel them. Perfume also became a means of diversion – perfumed parties were held where guests were splashed with a variety of fragrances, fountains sprayed perfumed water, and cannons shot sweet-smelling water. For a while, there was a resurrection of scent comparable to that of the ancient world, but in the 17th century, this began to decline, as Puritans began to frown upon the excess, doing things like “denouncing spices as sensual stimulants” (Classen 71).
Classen says the 17th and 18th centuries brought an “olfactory revolution” (78). Bathing became good for the health, and this began again the serious divide between the classes, olfactorily speaking. The upper and middle classes began to cleanse their bodies, and the lower classes did not They became increasingly more aware of the differences in scent between the more idle members of society and the working classes. Overall, the use of perfume declined. As most people were now bathing, it was no longer necessary to use perfume to cover the smells of the body. Still, though, it appears that the poor smelled filthy, the middle classes were relatively neutral when it came to odor, and the rich could afford perfume, which was viewed as extravagant, since its odor was fleeting. (Classen 83).
The olfactory revolution was also characterized by a division between the sexes. Up until this time, men and women wore similar smells, but as perfumes and colognes became more refined, sweet and floral smells became feminine, and woodsy or musky scents were masculine. The perfume industry began to create perfumes specifically for women, and market others as aftershaves for colognes for men. The reasons for this divide are not completely clear, but since perfumes were typed as frivolous by many members of society, they were likely deemed appropriate for “frivolous creatures”, namely, women (Classen 83). A flower garden was a feminine place, and thus, the world outside the flower garden, the wild wood, was masculine. Men, however were really not supposed to use perfume at all, Classen says they were expected to “disdain olfactory artifice and smell only of clean male skin and tobacco” (84). She notes that this trend was part of a “general cultural insistence at the time that the sexes appear in all ways to be different” (84).
Classen only devotes a few paragraphs to what I feel is one of the most critical elements in the history of smell culture – that of the hierarchy of the senses, which developed during the Enlightenment. Science had debunked many of the myths associated with the power of scent – no longer did people believe in the odor of sanctity, they didn’t think that smell was therapeutic, nor did they believe that smell caused disease. As philosophers such as Kant and Condillac, along with notable figures like Pasteur, Darwin and Freud, de-emphasized smell, olfaction began to fade away. Pasteur discovered that diseases were caused by germs, not scents. Condillac, in his Treatise on the Sensations remarked that “smell seems to contribute the least to the operations of the human mind” (qtd. in Classen 89). Kant called smell the “dust heap of the senses”, while Darwin supported the idea that man had evolved beyond the sense of smell, separating him from the animals. Freud and Herder agreed, saying that sight had taken priority when men began walking upright. Freud even explained that “adults who continue to emphasize the olfactory are arrested in their psychological development” (Classen 90). Kant expressed what became the general feeling about olfaction during this time:
“To which organic sense do we owe the least and which seems to be the most dispensable? The sense of smell. It does not pay us to cultivate it or to refine it in order to gain enjoyment’ this sense can pick up more objects of aversion than of pleasure (especially in crowded places) and, besides, the pleasure coming from the sense of smell cannot be other than fleeting and transitory.” (Kant 46).
Because of science, the 17th and 18th centuries became a rather sterile environment in the realm of olfaction.
An important exception does need to be noted, however. As odors were ushered out of the mainstream by science, they were adopted by literature. Classen comments: “Certain writers, such as Victor Hugo, Honore de Balzac and Emile Zola, set out to depict the olfactory landscapes of heir novels as graphically as the sanitary reformers detailed those of the streets and cities they wished to cleanse” (85). Although odor lost its power in the literal world, it kept its symbolic value, thereby making it an excellent tool for writers. The symbolist writers – including Baudelaire, Mallarme and Wilde, found that sense was a glorious way to explore themes of aestheticism and decadence. Using an ephemeral sense such as smell enabled them to create a dream-like atmosphere, and “the intrinsic formlessness of smell made it an apt literary metaphor for the formlessness of emotions” (Classen 86). Use of smell symbolically wasn’t the only reason for these writers, though – they also could use it to make a political statement. Mainstream society was repressing odor, as they were repressing sexuality and sensuality. Writers didn’t want to be “bound by the sterile social conventions” of bourgeoisie society, so they flaunted their rebellion by dwelling on the uncontrollable power of scent (Classen 87). Also noteworthy during this time is that smell first became deeply associated with memory, perhaps because “the growing deodorization of society was creating a nostalgia for lost scents” (Classen 87). Often, writers who wanted to create an atmosphere of bygone days would do so with olfactory description.
Aside from writers, however, the 19th century left us in an olfactory wasteland. The civilized, reasoning man had no truck with smell – it was a symbol of frivolity, femininity, and imagination. It could not be described, controlled, or catalogued, and was certainly of no interest to science. While commercially, olfaction continued to gain popularity, and the perfume industry has been booming since the late 1700’s, in culture and academia, scent has been virtually ignored for several hundred years.
Conclusions – Where do we go now?
The work of Constance Classen shows that one researcher has attempted to bring olfaction “out of scholarly and cultural unconscious into social and intellectual discourse” (10). Classen feels that what we need is “sensory equilibrium”, and only this can help us truly understand cultural history and how the senses work together. Sadly, Classen’s work in 1999 is one of only a very few examples of books on smell culture. While there is a growing interest in olfaction, especially in relation to commercialism and marketing, there are still only a few writers who show a significant interest in smell and culture. Many sensory scholars contribute segments of their writing to olfaction, but only as a small slice (and overall less important) of discussion of all five senses. This seems odd, considering that the sense of smell is our most primitive sense, that it is so closely aligned with emotion and memory, and that recently, great discoveries have been made about how smell works biologically and psychologically (Buck and Axel, Turin, Herz).
A review of smell in culture throughout history reveals that it was not always repressed as it is today. The ancient world lauded smell, and explored it as perfume, in their dinner parties, as cultural and social identity, and through philosophy. While somewhat limited by Christianity early on, the Middle Ages valued smell in religion and medicine, using perfume to ward off evil and dispel the plague. The 16th and 17th centuries brought increased division among the classes and sexes, and scent became the sign of the wealthy and elite – perfume once again became diversion, and sweet-smells of the garden became associated with femininity. The olfactory world was a busy place throughout much of history.
The Enlightenment began the severe repression of smell, as philosophers and scientists decided that vision was reason, and therefore at the top of the sense hierarchy. Although scent remained popular in the world of imagination and literature, memory and decadence, mainstream society rejected it, and we are still olfactorily illiterate. But now, more than ever, we have the means to resurrect scent in all manner of capacities. Seminal work in psychology, biology, and chemistry is revealing how smell works, how we perceive it, and what impact it has on our minds and our lives. Discoveries are being made regarding scent and sexuality, scent and art, scent and depression, and scent and technology. Some may feel that it’s presumptuous to elevate scent above the other senses, but after centuries of repression, it seems to me that olfaction warrants its own serious study. Jim Drobnick, author of the Smell Culture Reader, agrees: “there is certain strategic value in isolating the sense of smell…the goal is to invite immersion into an evanescent olfactocentric realm to consider how not only perception would change, but also thought” (3). Drobnick references Lewis Thomas, and his comment that smell “may not seem a profound enough problem to dominate all of the life sciences, but it contains, piece by piece, all the mysteries” (qtd. in Drobnick 3). And while there are a few notable scholars examining scent and culture, there is still a dire need for an examination of olfaction in regards to art, technology, and new media. Scent was once a vital part of culture, as history reveals – how can we make it so again?


Works Cited
Ackerman, Diane. A Natural History of the Senses. Toronto: Random House, 1990.
Classen, Constance, David Howes and Anthony Synnott. Aroma: The Cultural History of Smell. London: Routledge, 1994.
Drobnick, Jim. The Smell Culture Reader. New York: Berg, 2006.
Herz, Rachel. The Scent of Desire. New York: HarperCollins, 2007.
Kant, I. Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1798.
LeGuerer, Annick. Scent: The Mysterious and Essential Powers of Smell. New York: Random House, 1992.
Turin, Luca. The Secret of Scent. New York: Echo, 2006.