What is an Ivory Tower?

Answer 1

Ivory Tower

In Christian tradition, the term Ivory Tower is a symbol for noble purity. It originates from the Song of Solomon (7,4) ("Your neck is like an ivory tower") and has also been later used (among others) as an epithet for Mary in the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary ("tower of ivory").

Today, the term usually describes a methaphysical space of solitude and sanctity where most writers and scientists reside. The first reference to this meaning can be found in the texts by Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, a French literature critic and author approximately in the mid-19th century. He used the term "tour d'ivoire" to describe an attitude of an author towards what happens around him and in his texts.

"Living in an ivory tower" usually depicts an intellectual (a researcher or an artist) who lives only for his work and doesn't care much about, or is ignorant of, or thought to have made insufficient efforts to understand the social and political consequences of it, concentrating his or her entire efforts on the quest for what they perceive to be scientific or artistic truths. 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 material).

However, it is also true that the term has a rather negative flavor today, since the specialists who are so deeply drawn into their scientific fields of study that they often can't find a lingua franca with "normal" people outside their "ivory towers". Moreover, this problem is often ignored and instead of actively searching for a solution, most scientists simply accept that even educated people can't understand them and live in literal isolation.

Academic elitism, a tendency to seclude oneself in an "ivory tower", is often considered to be a problem among European (and, specifically, German) scientists, whereas their Anglo-Saxon colleagues are seen as the contrary.

Answer 2

A tower made of Ivory...but now I think it's a figure of speach...For example, we call the main office of our work the Ivory Tower...because we hate to have to go there...and that is where all the 'specail' people work (and were I used to work at first). It is viewed by us who work outside as where the eliteist work or all of the important people...Here is an example of how we use it in a sentance (note; read 'ivory tower' with a sarcastic tone):

"Heading down to the Ivory Tower for a meeting, got anything you need dropped off"...

"Nope, but have fun and don't stay too long"

Answer 3

In Christian tradition, the term Ivory Tower is a symbol for noble purity. It originates from the Song of Solomon (7,4) ("Your neck is like an ivory tower") and has also been later used (among others) as an epithet for Mary in the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary ("tower of ivory").

There is much more to be read at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivory_tower

Typically, people refer to the offices of those in higher authority at a workplace. IE: "I have to go see the boss over at the Ivory Towers"

Answer 4

Idiomatically Ivory tower is a perso/personality which refuses to interact with what 'it' thinks the common and inferior lot. A self elevated, through his/her imagination and often without much justification. Many scholars who shy away from the masses are ivory towers

Answer 5

A place or attitude of retreat, remoteness from everyday affairs, as in What does the professor know about student life, living as he does in an ivory tower? This term is a translation of the French tour d'ivoire, which the critic Saint-Beuve used to describe the attitude of poet Alfred de Vigny in 1837. It is used most often in reference to intellectuals and artists who remain complacently aloof.

Answer 6

I feel might be your watching at it the mistaken approach. In poetry you have got to deliver such a lot to the reader in so brief an area that phrase determination relatively turns into a primary side of writing poems. It's approximately deciding on the best phrase to invoke a specified feeling or snapshot, however much more importantly distinct phrases aid poems and prose float, writing will have to be like portray you have got to use extraordinary colours and brushstrokes otherwise you simply emerge as with the equal factor time and again. I relatively desire that you just difference your outlook in this, and I ask for forgiveness if I have angry you.

Answer 7

The Vatican They sit in one while the poor pay for it.

Answer 8

"Oh" that's the place I'll put ya, if ur cute & I like what I feel.

Answer 9

yeah