The term Ivory Tower designates a world or atmosphere where intellectuals engage in pursuits that are disconnected from the practical concerns of everyday life. As such, it has a pejorative connotation, denoting a willful disconnect from the everyday world; esoteric, over-specialized, or even useless research; and academic elitism, if not outright condescension by those inhabiting the proverbial ivory tower. In American English usage it ordinarily denotes the academic world of colleges and universities, particularly scholars of the humanities. The term Ivory Tower designates a world or atmosphere where intellectuals engage in pursuits that are disconnected from the practical concerns of everyday life. ... An intellectual is one who tries to use his or her intellect to work, study, reflect, speculate on, or ask and answer questions with regard to a variety of different ideas. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with pejoration. ... Connotation is a subjective cultural and/or emotional coloration in addition to the explicit or denotative meaning of any specific word or phrase in a language, i. ... Etymology Esoteric is an adjective originating during Hellenic Greece under the domain of the Roman Empire; it comes from the Greek esôterikos, from esôtero, the comparative form of esô: within. It is a word meaning anything that is inner and occult, a latinate word meaning hidden (from which... Academic institutions often face the charge of academic elitism, sometimes called the Ivory Tower. ... For other uses, see American English (disambiguation). ... Academia is a collective term for the scientific and cultural community engaged in higher education and research, taken as a whole. ... The humanities are those academic disciplines which study the human condition using methods that are largely analytic, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural and social sciences. ...

Religious usage

Modern stained glass image of an ivory tower with Marian symbols (the letter M and lilies)

In Judeo/Christian tradition, the term Ivory Tower is a symbol for noble purity. It originates with the Song of Solomon (7,4) ("Your neck is like an ivory tower") (in the Hebrew, Massoretic Bible it is found in 7:5) and was added to the epithets for Mary in the sixteenth century Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary ("tower of ivory", in latin Turris eburnea). Image File history File linksMetadata Stained_glass_Tower_of_Ivory. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Stained_glass_Tower_of_Ivory. ... Strictly speaking, stained glass is glass that has been painted with silver stain and then fired. ... Fleurs-de-lys on the flag of Quebec The fleur-de-lis (also spelled fleur-de-lys; plural fleurs-de-lis or -lys) is used in heraldry, where it is particularly associated with the France monarchy (see King of France). ... Judaism is the religious culture of the Jewish people. ... For other uses, see Christian (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Song of Solomon (disambiguation). ... An epithet (Greek - επιθετον and Latin - epitheton; literally meaning imposed) is a descriptive word or phrase. ... Saint Mary and Saint Mary the Virgin both redirect here. ... The Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a Christian prayer originally approved in 1587 by Pope Sixtus V. It is also known as the Litany of Loreto, for its first-known place of origin, the Shrine of Our Lady of Loreto, where its usage was recorded as early as...

The image is Biblical, and although the term is rarely used in religious sense, it is credited with inspiring the modern meaning.^[1] Today, ivory tower usually describes a metaphysical space of solitude and sanctity disconnected from daily realities, where certain idealistic writers dream and even some scientists are considered to reside. In Iliad (XIX.560) two kinds of dreams are distinguished, as they exit from the realm of Morpheus: true dreams exit through the Gate of Horn, and false dreams through the Gate of Ivory. Virgil put the image succinctly: A writer is anyone who creates a written work, although the word more usually designates those who write creatively or professionally, or those who have written in many different forms. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... title page of the Rihel edition of ca. ... Morpheus may mean: Morpheus (mythology), the principal god of dreams in the Greek mythology Morpheus (The Matrix), a fictional character from the film The Matrix Morpheus (computer game), a computer game released in 1998. ... For other uses, see Virgil (disambiguation). ...

There are two gates of sleep. One is of horn, easy passage for the shades of truth; the other, of gleaming white ivory, permits false dreams to ascend to the upper air. (Aeneid VI.893-896)

Aeneas flees burning Troy, Federico Barocci, 1598 Galleria Borghese, Rome The Aeneid (IPA English pronunciation: ; in Latin Aeneis, pronounced — the title is Greek in form: genitive case Aeneidos) is a Latin epic written by Virgil in the 1st century BC (between 29 and 19 BC) that tells the legendary story...

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 by Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, a French literary critic and author, who used the term "tour d'ivoire" to describe the poetical attitude of Alfred de Vigny as contrasted with the more socially engaged Victor Hugo (ref. Quinion). At Oxford, the appearance of the Hawksmoor Towers, twin creamy-white neo-gothic towers at All Souls College, Oxford, the only pure research college at Oxford, epitomize the "ivory tower" of Academe. [1] [2] At the George Washington University, in Washington, DC a residence hall constructed in 2004 was named "Ivory Tower," a decision criticized by some GWU faculty for the reflexive irony of giving the dorm such a moniker. Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve. ... Literary criticism is the study, discussion, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. ... Alfred de Vigny, 1832 Alfred Victor de Vigny (March 27, 1797 – September 17, 1863) was a French poet, playwright, and novelist. ... Victor-Marie Hugo (pronounced in French) (26 February 1802 — 22 May 1885) was a French poet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights campaigner, and perhaps the most influential exponent of the Romantic movement in France. ... The University of Oxford, located in the city of Oxford in England, is the oldest university in the English-speaking world. ... The career of Nicholas Hawksmoor (probably 1661 - 25 March 1736) formed the brilliant middle link in Britains trio of great baroque architects. ... College name All Souls College Collegium Omnium Animarum Named after Feast of All Souls Established 1438 Sister College Trinity Hall, Cambridge Warden Dr. John Davis JCR President None Undergraduates None MCR President None Graduates 8 (approx. ... Plato is credited with the inception of academia: the body of knowledge, its development and transmission across generations. ... The George Washington University (GWU) is a private university in Washington, D.C., founded in 1821 as The Columbian College. ... Aerial photo (looking NW) of the Washington Monument and the White House in Washington, DC. Washington, D.C., officially the District of Columbia (also known as D.C.; Washington; the Nations Capital; the District; and, historically, the Federal City) is the capital city and administrative district of the United...

Henry James' last, unfinished 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. "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 scientific fields of study that they often can't find a lingua franca with laymen outside their "ivory towers". Moreover, this problem is often ignored and instead of actively searching for a solution, some scientists simply accept that even educated people can't understand them and live in intellectual isolation. For other uses of this name, see Henry James (disambiguation). ... The Breakers, a gilded-age mansion in Newport, Rhode Island. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Lingua franca, literally Frankish language in Italian, was originally a mixed language consisting largely of Italian plus a vocabulary drawn from Turkish, Persian, French, Greek and Arabic and used for communication throughout the Middle East. ... Look up Layman in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Solitude can have various meanings Castle_Solitude and race track memorial site, Stuttgart, Germany 100 Years of Solitude The Fortress of Solitude Solitude Aeturnus Solitude (also seclusion, isolation) means lack of contact with other people. ...

References in fiction

• In Michael Ende's The Neverending Story, the Ivory Tower is a city/palace in the center of Fantastica (Fantasia in the eponymous film) where the Childlike Empress resides.
• In James Joyce's novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Stephen Dedalus calls his love interest his "ivory tower."
• In the videogame Lineage 2, Ivory Tower is a high tower in the map, surrounded by a crater, where the most powerful wizards reside.
• In the videogame Heroes of Might and Magic II, the wizard castle's fifth-level unit-producing building is called Ivory Tower. It appears as a tall white tower with a staircase winding around the outside and an observatory on the top, and trains (arch-) mages.
• In the roleplaying game Vampire: The Masquerade, the worldwide vampiric organization commonly known as the Camarilla often uses the sobriquet The Ivory Tower.
• In the collectible card game Magic: The Gathering, there is a card of the artifact type named Ivory Tower.
• Harvard University's campus soap opera is called Ivory Tower.[3]

Michael Andreas Helmuth Ende (November 12, 1929 - August 29, 1995) was a German writer of fantasy novels and childrens books. ... The Neverending Story (German: ) is a fantasy novel by Michael Ende, first published in Germany in 1979. ... Fantastica is the fantasy land in the book The Neverending Story by Michael Ende. ... The Childlike Empress is an important character in the 1979 Michael Ende novel, Die Unendliche Geschichte (The Neverending Story). ... This article is about the writer and poet. ... A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a semi-autobiographical novel by James Joyce, first serialized in The Egoist from 1914 to 1915 and published in book form in 1916. ... Lineage II: The Chaotic Chronicle is a fantasy massively multiplayer computer role-playing game (MMORPG) and sequel to Lineage. ... Heroes of Might and Magic II (often called simply Heroes II or HoMM2) is the second installment of the Heroes of Might and Magic computer game series. ... Heroes of Might and Magic II (often called simply Heroes II or HoMM2) is the second installment of the Heroes of Might and Magic computer game series. ... Stairs, staircase, stairway, flight of stairs are all names for a construction designed to bridge a large vertical distance by dividing it into smaller vertical distances, called steps. ... MolÄ—tai Astronomical Observatory An observatory is a location used for observing terrestrial and/or celestial events. ... The Wizard is a magician character class in many role-playing games and computer role-playing games. ... Vampire: The Masquerade (Revised Edition) cover. ... The Camarilla is a fictional sect of vampires in the World of Darkness, the setting of White Wolf Game Studios role-playing game Vampire: The Masquerade. ... A sobriquet is a nickname or a fancy name, usually a familiar name given by others as distinct from a pseudonym assumed as a disguise, but a nickname which is familiar enough such that it can be used in place of a real name without the need of explanation. ... Collectible card games (CCGs), also called trading card games (TCGs), are played using specially designed sets of cards. ... Magic: The Gathering (colloq. ... Harvard University (incorporated as The President and Fellows of Harvard College) is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA and a member of the Ivy League. ...

References

Year 2001 (MMI) was a common year starting on Monday (link displays the 2001 Gregorian calendar). ... January 13 is the 13th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era. ... is the 114th day of the year (115th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...

External links

• WordOrigins:"Ivory Tower"