kwaw said:
(BTW: Any parallels between the tales of Yvaine and the structure and figures of the tarot trumps does not necessarily imply a direct relationship between the two; but rather a common basis in their intertextual references to scripture and the traditions of typological interpretation applied to such within the context of the Christian society of which they are both a product. They both draw upon the same fountain of figurative tropes, the same treasure house of images,narratives and interpretive conventions.)
Possibly there are parallels to be drawn also in terms of potential educative purposes, the chivalric tales with emphasis on cardinal and courtly virtues sharing in an ethos with the trumps as types of 'mirror of princes' teaching the ethics of civic virtues to those who will be in a position to rule. Though perhaps this is more relevant to the civic humanism of the early painted cards of the Italian courts (in respect of the so called 'courtly' humanism of Ferrara and 'subdital' humanism of Milan*), traces are still I think possible to detect in the TdM pattern wherein it retains elements in common with them, reformed perhaps to reflect a more polemical than didactic function.
Kwaw
*"Civic humanism had a counterpart in what one historian has labeled as “courtly humanism” and another one as “subdital humanism,” with reference to the use of the renovated classical ethos to support, praise, and illustrate the new seigniorial rulers."
Scaglione, Aldo. Knights at Court: Courtliness, Chivalry, and Courtesy from Ottonian Germany to the Italian Renaissance. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1991 1991.
http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft4j49p00c/
