August 22, 2023

"The Matter of Tarot" + "The Magic of Blue" . . .

Over the past week, I’ve been going through an accumulation of Tarot-related files, links, and snags, with a goal of planning the stories I definitely want to write in what remains of 2023.

In the process, two things happened. First, I was overwhelmed (yet again!) by the breadth and depth of Tarot as a topic. Second, I found myself even more determined to explore not just the many aspects of Tarot, but also the reasons why Tarot has evolved in so many directions, over so many centuries.

Yes, that’s three “manys” in a row. Which signals how difficult it is to convey the scope of this subject.

Luckily, I came across a cryptic note I’d scribbled to myself in several places at various times. So that’s where we start today.

“The Matter of Tarot”

For many years I had the best (not hyperbole) part-time job in the world: freelance research and writing for Literary Criticism Online (LCC), and other Gale publications. Due to an evil merger, that job no longer exists—but the hundreds of authors, works, and topics I got to write about gave me insights and information I would never have had otherwise.

One of my specializations was medieval literature and philosophy. And now that I think about it, spending a lot of time in the imaginal spaces of those centuries probably contributes to my emphasis on the late medieval origins of Tarot.

For example: I’m convinced there’s significance in the fact that our earliest known trumps appeared around the same time moveable type developed in Germany. And just a few years before the first printing presses reached Italy. From that perspective, we could think of the Tarot trumps as endlessly re-arrangeable symbols—quite similar to the re-arrangeable metal letters that transformed text reproduction from laborious hand lettering to a quick, consistent method of printing.

I’ll write more about that some other time! For now, I want to revisit one of the topics I wrote about for LCC:

The Anonymous authors of Middle English romances composed narrative poems from about 1250 to about 1500, and their works included expanded portrayals of an idealized aristocratic life, along with a new model of the love relationship. These romances are often cited as the early ancestors of the modern novel, as they began to develop the kind of characterization and plot detail that would later become the hallmark of prose fiction . . . .

Scholars generally agree on the difficulty of defining romance as a specific category of Middle English poetry.  Many, but not all, of the poems characterized as romances do share some aspects of a typical romance plot, in which a heroic protagonist undertakes a meaningful journey.  The journey may be external, involving a quest for some desired object or required accomplishment, but it may also be internal, involving a quest for knowledge, love, power, or some other means of personal transformation.  The protagonist may be a king, a knight, or another kind of aspirant, and although most are young men, there are also older protagonists and even a small number of women. 

Of course it’s easy to recognize the characters of Middle English Romance as the same ones who turn up in other European societies at the time, and appear in the Tarot trumps and court cards. Equally obvious—the typical plot elements of these romances form the outline of what we now call “the hero’s journey”—as interpreted by Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell.

But there were many variations on those themes, played out in hundreds of examples that we know of. In their time, these “romances” were as popular as the genre fiction of today, and from early on, there were attempts to sort them out.

To cope with such a large and diverse set of texts, scholars have constructed various ways of dividing the Middle English romances. The oldest of these, which is still often used, is the division by content. This approach was suggested in the twelfth century by the French poet Jean Bodel, who commented that everyone should be acquainted with three “matters,” or bodies of material: the matter of Britain (stories of King Arthur and his time); the matter of France (stories of Charlemagne and his court), and the matter of Rome (stories from classical antiquity). This tripartite structure was often used over the following centuries both by writers in search of subject matter and scholars in search of critical tools.

Basically, these “matters” were accumulations of history and story, myths and songs, characters and landscapes—all interpreted and recast by generations of poets.

I think of Tarot as just such a “matter.” A rich tradition that goes on and on, along familiar lines but also in radically unexpected directions.

This is similar to something I wrote quite recently: “The First Tarot is the sum over time of all its examples, interpretations, and explanations.”

But there’s a significant difference.

The “First Tarot” goes off in all directions—like fireworks. By contrast, the “Matter of Tarot” unfolds and expands over time, building on what has come before and growing like a forest of interconnected roots, trunks, branches.

That haunting image was created by artist Katie Holten—and if you want to have an extraordinary experience, watch how a seedling poem expands into this visual forest.

If we could see a time-lapse movie that takes Tarot from 15th century Italy til today—I wonder what it would look like. But as for now, I’m delighted to keep finding new Tarot connections like . . . .

The Magic of Blue

I can’t think of a Tarot deck that captivated me as quickly as this one did.

It’s Alyson Davies’ Blue Earth Tarot—and here are more images:

If you too have been captivated—or even just mildly charmed—rush to YouTube and watch Alyson’s 11-minute video: “The Process of Creating a Cyanotype Tarot Deck”

As long-time readers of EP will know, I have a very wide range of taste when it comes to Tarot decks. Someday I’ll try to figure out whether a common thread runs through them all. But in the meantime, I’ll share a small fact that may connect with the appeal of this vibrantly blue Tarot.

According to an account from the Biblical Archaeological Society . . .

In the Bible, a shade of blue called tekhelet was God’s chosen color for the ancient Israelites. Tekhelet drapes adorned Solomon’s Temple, and tekhelet robes were worn by Israel’s high priests. . . . Even ordinary Israelites “were commanded to tie one string of tekhelet to the corner fringes (Hebrew, tzitzit) of their garments as a constant reminder of their special relationship with God” (Numbers 15:38–39). The tradition of blue tzitzit still exists today.

But no one knows what shade it really was, or how the dye was made—and to this very day, experiments (and arguments) focus on the mystery of that perfect blue.

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Thanks for reading! Later this week I’ll be sending some surprises. C