Review by Fairyhedgehog
The Shakespearian Tarot was created by Dolores
Ashcroft-Nowicki, who also designed the Servants of the Light deck.
It is intended to be a working tarot deck which will
appeal equally to tarot enthusiasts and to lovers of
Shakespeare. The rich illustrations by Paul Hardy, quotes from
Shakespeare and Dolores' expertise in the Tarot somehow fail
to come together into the expected masterpiece but
leave us with a fascinating, intriguing and sometimes
frustrating deck.
The Shakespearian Tarot (which is
currently out of print) comes as a deck and book set in a
substantial cardboard box. Each card has a title giving its
place in the tarot deck, eg III Empress, or Two of
Swords; a picture depicting a scene from a Shakespeare
play; and a quotation from that play. The book gives
information about the plays, the reasoning behind the choice
of image for each card and upright and reversed
meanings. The meanings tend towards divination rather than
personal development.
The cards are thin and flexible and
have an almost silky surface. They are unusually
narrow and fit snugly into the hand which makes them seem
to demand to be held. The backs depict a woodcarving
in warm browns. They are not reversible.
The
pictures are in rich colours but have been greatly reduced
to fit onto these small cards thus losing some detail
in the process. They appear less vibrant than the
pictures online.
The major arcana follow the Rider Waite
system. They include some truly inspired cards such as
the Magician as Prospero saying "Now does all my
project gather to a head" and the Tower as the Tower of
London seen from the inside as the princes are hurled out
of it. Temperance has an allusion to the song in
Much Ado about Nothing: "Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no
more,/ Men were deceivers ever" which will forever bring
the Branagh version of this play to my mind. All
these cards cause me a stomach-clenching feeling of
instant recognition.
Unfortunately, the minor arcana are
less clear. Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki had far more
trouble with these, she tells us in the book, and this is
evident in the cards. Cups and pentacles are Crowns and
Orbs respectively, or they probably are. We are not
told what the correspondences are, and at times there
seems to be some confusion between these suits. The ten
of orbs has Romeo and Juliet on it, as ‘the happy
ending card’ which sounds like the ten of cups. The
seven of crowns is about choosing and not being taken in
by illusions which sounds like the seven of cups.
All the suits have some connection to sovereignty
which restricts the meanings somewhat. Most of the
meanings sound rather definite and divinatory and tend
towards the negative.
Despite these niggles, this is an
amazing deck. I love the sensuous-feeling cards and some
of the wonderful (if small) pictures. I am also
enjoying reading the book. However, I haven’t been able to
decide as yet what place the Shakespearian Tarot will
occupy in my tarot collection.
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