Tarot Symbols

Looking back through the history of tarot, you might be convinced that tarot symbolism relates mainly to the Medieval and Renaissance literary eras. The 22 Major Arcana cards, also known as Triumphs or Trumps, came from a Roman celebration featuring the personalities in a modern-day tarot deck. It is also important to note that the term “tarot” came from the Italian word “trionfi” which means “triumph.” It is easy to make a connection between the parades and how Romans used the personification of Justice, Strength, Star, etc in their arts and literature.

However, this is one of the claims on the history of tarot symbolism but other cultures in Europe, Egypt, China and Persia have their own interpretations that can also be supported by literary texts. The origins of tarot symbolism are a mystery and yet we are still able to give each card our own interpretation that transcends culture. This leads us to another mystery; the universal use of the meanings we give to tarot symbolism.

The psychoanalyst Carl Jung was the first known person to use tarot symbolism for interpreting the human mind. His theory of the collective unconscious is greatly supported by evidence from tarot symbolism, as shown in arts and literature. He claimed that our unconscious mind is guided by archetypes that manifest themselves in the realm of dreams.

Jung would assert that these archetypes, or features of tarot symbolism, appear in literature because our collective unconscious is revealed when communication is based on affect (instead of intellect) and this happens through art. Jung published the book “Memories, Dreams, and Reflections” in which he discussed the prevalence of literary archetypes that transcend time and space. The reason being, what he would fondly call, our “shared pool of experiences.”

Tarot symbolism can be found in any type of literature from classical to post-modern. William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, for example, does not only draw from mythology. The meanings of each character and setting can be traced to tarot symbolism and can be quite apparent if one has a deep understanding of tarot.

Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray” has the Magician lurking in its pages, if you read between the lines. This is a subtle, and possibly unconscious, depiction of tarot symbolism, but it shows that tarot symbolism or, as Jung would call it, the archetypes, already lurk in our unconscious mind, waiting to be unveiled in arts and literature.

Not even the social realism of Fyodor Dostoevsky and the modernism of Italo Calvino can hide from these literary archetypes, as all literary endeavors are symbolic in nature. To prove the point that imposing tarot symbolism can also be a conscious act in literature, Calvino wrote a collection of short stories, “The Castle of Crossed Destinies,” which is illustrated with two medieval Italian decks of tarot cards. The post-modern author Neil Gaiman did the same with his short story “Fifteen Painted Cards from a Vampire Tarot,” a dark and exciting interpretation of fifteen of the Major Arcana.

It is too simplistic to conclude that tarot symbolism is only a work of fortunetelling and occultism. The fact that tarot appears in a great deal of important literature, however subtle or mainstream it may be, tells us that tarot symbolism is deep-seated in every one.