An ivory tower is a metaphorical place—or an atmosphere—where people are happily cut off from the rest of the world in favor of their own pursuits, usually mental and esoteric ones. From the 19th century, it has been used to designate an environment of intellectual pursuit disconnected from the practical concerns of everyday life. Most contemporary uses of the term refer to
academia
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy ...
or the college and university systems in many countries.
The term originated from the Biblical
Song of Songs () with a different meaning and was later used as an
epithet for
Mary
Mary may refer to:
People
* Mary (name), a feminine given name (includes a list of people with the name)
Religious contexts
* New Testament people named Mary, overview article linking to many of those below
* Mary, mother of Jesus, also call ...
.
Biblical usage
In the
Christian tradition, the term ''ivory tower'' is used as a symbol for noble purity. It originates with the
Song of Songs 7:4 ("Your neck is like an ivory tower"; in the Hebrew
Masoretic text, it is found in 7:5) and was included in the
epithets for
Mary
Mary may refer to:
People
* Mary (name), a feminine given name (includes a list of people with the name)
Religious contexts
* New Testament people named Mary, overview article linking to many of those below
* Mary, mother of Jesus, also call ...
in the sixteenth-century
Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary ("tower of ivory", ''turris eburnea'' in Latin), though the title and image were in use long before that, since the 12th-century
Marian revival at least.
It occasionally appears in art, especially in depictions of Mary in the ''
hortus conclusus
''Hortus conclusus'' is a Latin term, meaning literally "enclosed garden". At their root, both of the words in ''hortus conclusus'' refer linguistically to enclosure. It describes a genre of garden that was enclosed as a practical concern, a majo ...
''. Although the term is rarely used in the religious sense in modern times, it is credited with inspiring the modern meaning.
Modern usage
The first modern usage of "ivory tower" in the familiar sense of an unworldly dreamer can be found in a poem of 1837, "Pensées d'Août, à M. Villemain", by
Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve
Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve (; 23 December 1804 – 13 October 1869) was a French literary critic.
Early life
He was born in Boulogne, educated there, and studied medicine at the Collège Charlemagne in Paris (1824–27). In 1828, he s ...
, a French
literary critic
Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. Th ...
and author, who used the term ''"tour d'ivoire"'' for the poetical attitude of
Alfred de Vigny as contrasted with the more socially engaged
Victor Hugo: "Et Vigny, plus secret, Comme en sa tour d'ivoire, avant midi rentrait".
nd Vigny, the more secretive, like he was in his ivory tower, returning before midday.ref name="WWW" /> This poetic use of ''"tour d'ivoire"'' may have been an allusion to the rook (or castle) in chess, which is another meaning of the French word ''tour''. Chess pieces were often made of ivory. The name Rook is derived from the Persian ''rukh'' ("chariot"), maybe influenced by the Italian ''rocca'' ("fortress"). In early versions of chess, this piece was imagined as conveying and shielding a powerful warrior.
Henry James
Henry James ( – ) was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the ...
's last novel, ''The Ivory Tower'', was begun in 1914 and left unfinished at his death two years later. Paralleling James' own dismaying experience of the United States after twenty years away, it chronicles the effect on a high-minded returning upper-class American of the vulgar emptiness of the
Gilded Age
In United States history, the Gilded Age was an era extending roughly from 1877 to 1900, which was sandwiched between the Reconstruction era and the Progressive Era. It was a time of rapid economic growth, especially in the Northern and West ...
. "You seem all here so hideously rich", says his hero. Thus, there are two meanings mixed together: mockery of an absent-minded savant and admiration of someone who is able to devote his or her entire efforts to a noble cause (hence ''"
ivory"'', a noble but impractical building material). The term has a rather negative flavor today, the implication being that specialists who are so deeply drawn into their fields of study often can't find a
lingua franca with
laymen
In religious organizations, the laity () consists of all members who are not part of the clergy, usually including any non-ordained members of religious orders, e.g. a nun or a lay brother.
In both religious and wider secular usage, a layperson ...
outside their ''"ivory towers"''.
In Andrew Hodges' biography of the
University of Cambridge scientist
Alan Turing
Alan Mathison Turing (; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, and theoretical biologist. Turing was highly influential in the development of theoretical co ...
, he discusses Turing's 1936–38 stay at
Princeton University and writes that "
e tower of the Graduate College was an exact replica of
Magdalen College
Magdalen College (, ) is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. It was founded in 1458 by William of Waynflete. Today, it is the fourth wealthiest college, with a financial endowment of £332.1 million as of 2019 and one of the ...
, and it was popularly called the Ivory Tower, because of that benefactor of Princeton, the
Procter who manufactured
Ivory soap."
William Cooper Procter
William Cooper Procter (August 25, 1862 – May 2, 1934) was head of Procter & Gamble from 1907 to 1930 and was the last member of the founding families to lead the company.
Biography
He was born on August 25, 1862. He was the grandson of Willia ...
(Princeton class of 1883) was a significant supporter of the construction of the Graduate College, and the main dining hall bears the Procter name. The skylines of
Oxford and Cambridge universities, along with many
Ivy League
The Ivy League is an American collegiate athletic conference comprising eight private research universities in the Northeastern United States. The term ''Ivy League'' is typically used beyond the sports context to refer to the eight schools ...
universities, are dotted with turrets and spires which are often described as 'Ivory Towers'.
In
Randall Jarrell's essay "The End of the Line" (1942), Jarrell asserts that if modern poetry is to survive then poets must come down from the "Ivory Tower" of elitist composition. Jarrell's main thrust is that the rich poetry of the
modernist period was over-dependent upon reference to other literary works. For Jarrell the Ivory Tower led modern poetry into obscurity.
Writers for
Philadelphia's other newspapers sarcastically referred to the former headquarters of the
establishment ''
Philadelphia Inquirer'', a white
art deco
Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...
tower called the
Elverson Building, as the "Ivory Tower of Truth."
Academic usage
The ivory tower is most often connected with the careers and lifestyles of academics in university and college systems. They have often garnered reputations as elite institutions by joining or creating associations with other universities. In many countries, these institutions aligned themselves with a specific mission or athletic ties. Some have criticized the elitism associated with these groups. Others have also noted that these terms bear little resemblance to the actual best universities in a country.
In certain instances, these ivory-tower universities have received a disproportionate amount of regional and national funding.
They also produce a higher proportion of a country's publications and citations. They tend to be overrepresented in top university rankings, such as ''
Academic Ranking of World Universities
The ''Academic Ranking of World Universities'' (''ARWU''), also known as the Shanghai Ranking, is one of the annual publications of world university rankings. The league table was originally compiled and issued by Shanghai Jiao Tong University ...
'', ''
QS World University Rankings'', the ''
Times Higher Education World University Rankings
The ''Times Higher Education World University Rankings'' (often referred to as the THE Rankings) is an annual publication of university rankings by the ''Times Higher Education'' (THE) magazine. The publisher had collaborated with Quacquarelli ...
'', and the ''
U.S. News & World Report Best Global University Ranking''.
See also
*
Gates of horn and ivory
The gates of horn and ivory are a literary image used to distinguish true dreams (corresponding to factual occurrences) from false. The phrase originated in the Greek language, in which the word for "horn" is similar to that for "fulfill" and the ...
*
Intelligentsia
*
Blue skies research
Blue skies research (also called blue sky science) is scientific research in domains where "real-world" applications are not immediately apparent. It has been defined as "research without a clear goal"
and "curiosity-driven science". It is someti ...
*
College and university rankings
College and university rankings order the best institutions in higher education based on factors that vary depending on the ranking. Some rankings evaluate institutions within a single country, while others assess institutions worldwide. Ranking ...
*
Academia
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy ...
*
Laputa
Laputa uh·poo·tuhis a flying island described in the 1726 book ''Gulliver's Travels'' by Jonathan Swift. It is about in diameter, with an adamantine base, which its inhabitants can manoeuvre in any direction using magnetic levitation. Th ...
,
Jonathan Swift's satire of the impractical research of the
Royal Society
References
External links
Ivory Tower at Wordorigins.org
The Ivory Tower: the history of a figure of speech and its cultural uses Steven Shapin. ''BJHS'' 45(1): 1–27, March 2012
{{Authority control
Academic culture
Academic slang
Hebrew Bible words and phrases
Ivory
Metaphors referring to places
Metaphors referring to objects
Song of Songs
Titles of Mary