Elfenbenstårn

Elfenbenstårn (fransk: tour d'ivoire) er en metafor for intellektuell eller mental avsondrethet som den lærde eller dikteren flykter til for å unngå oppmerksomhet fra den ulærde masse, eller for den misantropiske romantikers selvvalgte ensomhet.

Det var Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve som skapte metaforen for å beskrive Alfred de Vignys liv på hans eldre dager.^[1] Senere brukte Henry James det som tittel på romanen The Ivory Tower. James rakk ikke å ferdigstille denne romanen.^[2]

I begynnelsen var begrepet en poetisk betegnelse. Etter hvert har begrepet blitt brukt i mer nedsettende betydning, som uttrykk for at noen inntar en klanderverdig avstand til og uvitenhet om hverdagslivet og gjennomsnittlige mennesker. Ikke minst brukes begrepet ofte om forskning som er så overspesialisert og esoterisk at den synes ubrukelig og overflødig fra en lekmanns synspunkt, om akademisk elitisme, eller om direkte nedlatende snobberi.

Andre betydninger

Ordet forekommer med en annen betydning i Bibelen, Høysangen 7,4.^[1]

Referanser

^ ^a ^b «Elfenbenstårn». naob.no. Det Norske Akademis ordbok. Besøkt 29. juni 2020.
^ «The Ivory Tower». New York Review Books (på engelsk). Besøkt 29. juni 2020. «In 1914, Henry James began work on a major novel about the immense new fortunes of America’s Gilded Age. After an absence of more than twenty years, James had returned for a visit to his native country; what he found there filled him with profound dismay. In The Ivory Tower, his last book, the characteristic pattern underlying so much of his fiction—in which American “innocence” is transformed by its encounter with European “experience”—receives a new twist: raised abroad, the hero comes home to America to confront, as James puts it, “the black and merciless things that are behind the great possessions.” | James died in 1916 with the first three books of The Ivory Tower completed. He also left behind a “treatment,” in which he charted the further progress of his story.»

[:0-1] «Elfenbenstårn». naob.no. Det Norske Akademis ordbok. Besøkt 29. juni 2020.

[2] «The Ivory Tower». New York Review Books (på engelsk). Besøkt 29. juni 2020. «In 1914, Henry James began work on a major novel about the immense new fortunes of America’s Gilded Age. After an absence of more than twenty years, James had returned for a visit to his native country; what he found there filled him with profound dismay. In The Ivory Tower, his last book, the characteristic pattern underlying so much of his fiction—in which American “innocence” is transformed by its encounter with European “experience”—receives a new twist: raised abroad, the hero comes home to America to confront, as James puts it, “the black and merciless things that are behind the great possessions.” | James died in 1916 with the first three books of The Ivory Tower completed. He also left behind a “treatment,” in which he charted the further progress of his story.»

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