Seven Pillars of Wisdom

Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph is the autobiographical account of the experiences of T. E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia") while serving as a liaison officer with rebel forces during the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Turks of 1916 to 1918.

Title

The title comes from the Book of Proverbs, 9:1: Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars. (KJV) Prior to World War I, Lawrence had begun work on a scholarly book about seven great cities of the Arab world, to be titled Seven Pillars of Wisdom. The outbreak of war saw it still uncompleted and Lawrence says he later destroyed the manuscript. Nevertheless, he decided to recycle the evocative title for the memoirs he penned in the aftermath of the war.

Related Topics:
Book of Proverbs - KJV - World War I - Arab world

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Whilst the title might seem better suited to the former book than the latter, a line from the dedicatory poem at the start of the book helps explain Lawrence's interpretation of the Biblical "seven pillars" and their relevance to the Arab Revolt:

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:I loved you, so I drew these tides of men into my hands

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:and wrote my will across the sky in stars

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:To gain you Freedom, the seven-pillared worthy house,

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:that your eyes might be shining for me

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:When I came.

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A variant last line of that stanza – reading "When we came" – appears in some editions; however, the 1922 Oxford text (considered the definitive version; see below) has "When I came".

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