Shakespeare Tarot Deck

[actaeon]

For some time, on and off, I've been working on designing a tarot deck based on the Shakespearean canon, the current state of which can be found at www.republicofheaven.org.uk/sh_tarot.htm.

I've selected a character for each card, and am currently looking for apposite quotes for each.

If anyone wants to argue about my selection, suggest amendments, or suggest appropriate quotes for cards, I'm happy to listen. And once I've done the quotes, I'm going to be looking for suitable images for the cards...

N.B. I know there have been a couple of Shakespeare tarot decks produced commercially, but none are currently available and what I've seen doesn't commend them highly to me either.

[shaxper]

I like the idea, and most of your choices, though I can't help wondering why you passed up The Globe for the world. Otherwise, I'm very impressed.

[actaeon]

The Globe was an idea which occurred to me, but I wanted to concentrate on the works rather than the life. The World, in Tarot, signifies success and fulfilment, so in Shakespeare's life it would more properly, I think, be represented by a picture of New Place.

The major arcana are commonly taken to represent a journey from the Fool to the World, as the person learnms about themselves. So the idea of the innocent Viola landing in Illyria as the Fool, progressing to self-knowledge and ending with the World, was quite an attractive one. And the World card is commonly illustrated as four figures (sometimes the four evangelists) surrounding a central dancing figure. So having the four figures as Orsino, Viola, Olivia, Sebastian seemed a nice image.