punctum books
Ruinous Monument': Transporting Objects in Herbert's Persepolis
- Nedda Mehdizadeh (author)
Chapter of: Animal, Vegetable, Mineral: Ethics and Objects(pp. 281–288)
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| Title | Ruinous Monument' |
|---|---|
| Subtitle | Transporting Objects in Herbert's Persepolis |
| Contributor | Nedda Mehdizadeh (author) |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.21983/P3.0006.1.13 |
| Landing page | https://punctumbooks.com/titles/animal-vegetable-mineral-ethics-and-objects/ |
| License | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ |
| Copyright | Mehdizadeh, Nedda |
| Publisher | punctum books |
| Published on | 2012-05-07 |
| Long abstract | As part of his journey to Persia in 1626, travel writer Sir Thomas Herbert visits the ruins of the ancient political center of the Persian Empire, Persepolis. Rather than narrating the customs, dress, or histories of the inhabitants as he does elsewhere in his travelogue, A Relation of Some Yeares Travaile, Herbert gives a detailed account of the size, structure, and material of the palace. He sifts through the stones of the rubble and imagines what they would have looked like when the structure was intact before Alexander the Great’s con-quest. Herbert’s account describes an encounter with Persia’s past, and is defined by the objects that remain after its fall. In a narrative primarily concerned with the inhabitants of a foreign place—whether the natives of the early modern period or the ghosts of the ancient past—why does Herbert dwell on the stones that once made up the palace of Persepolis? This moment in Herbert’s narrative is one he cannot escape. In fact, he goes back to the section “Persepolis” with each successive edition of his travelogue, reimagining it by linguistically recon-structing it through narrative. The fragments, then, continue to call to him long after its first publication in 1634. As the contributors to this volume suggest in their essays about non-human literature and culture, these seemingly mundane objects are in fact full of potential and power. Like the objects that called to Jane Bennett, inspiring her book Vibrant Matter and resurfacing in her essay “Powers of the Hoard,” Herbert’s stones beckon to him to return to Persia and to dwell in its past. Persepolis—as a term, concept, space—withstands the test of time, carrying with it a layered story that resides in the stones which “draw us near and provoke our deep attachments to them.” |
| Page range | pp. 281–288 |
| Print length | 8 pages |
| Language | English (Original) |
Contributors