Return to the index of "Other Women's Voices."
Updated 05-07-08
Juana Ines de la Cruz /Juana Ramirez
de Asbaje (1648/51-1695)
========================================================================
"IT SEEMED FAINT-HEARTED MEEKLY TO YIELD... BEFORE THE BATTLE
STARTED."
========================================================================
In 1669, Juana described herself as the "legitimate daughter of Don Pedro de Asbaje y Vargas Machuda and of Isabel Ramirez." The identity of her parents is unquestioned; her "legitimacy" continues to be discussed by scholars. She was raised by her mother, as were two older sisters and three younger half-siblings, on her grandfather's plantation outside of Mexico City. She later described herself as learning to read very early and as resisting all attempts to keep her from the books in her grandfather's library.
At some point before 1664 Juana was sent to Mexico City to live with relatives. When a new viceroy, the Marquis de Mancera, was sent from Spain, Juana was taken to court and soon became a favorite of Mancera and his wife, Leonor Carreto (called "Laura" in Juana's poems). In 1667 Juana spent a few months at a Carmelite monastery, and in 1669 she permanently entered the less austere monastery of Santa Paula, where she took the name Juana Ines de la Cruz.
At least two of Juana's sonnets can be dated to before 1669, and other poems may be from her time at court. It is hard to be sure, because in her monastery she continued to write court-centered poetry --- occasional poems honoring court and city figures, love poems, satires --- the whole range of secular Baroque lyric. Although she could not leave the monastery, members of the court and local intellectuals visited her; more importantly, she was allowed to have books, and with these, she could continue her studies.
In 1674 the Manceras left Mexico City, and for the next six years the Archbishop of Mexico would act as viceroy. It was during this period that Juana began to receive ecclesiastic commissions. She wrote villancicos (sets of carols to be sung at religious festivals) and at least one loa (a brief play used as a prelude to a longer religious play or court entertainment). In early 1680 she was commissioned to design one of two arches that would be built to welcome a new viceroy arriving from Spain. She also wrote a pamphlet explaining the allegorical meaning of the arch she had designed. This was published as Neptune alegorica, her second publication (a villancico had been printed three years before).
The newly arrived viceroy was the Marquis de la Laguna; with him came his wife, Maria Luisa, Countess of Paredes (whom Juana's poems would address as "Lysis" or "Phyllis"). During the eight years that the Lagunas remained in Mexico, Juana would write the bulk of her work --- courtly and religious poetry, religious and secular plays (including Los empenos de una casa, which was staged in public), and probably her long poem, El sueno. With the Lagunas as her patrons, Juana was protected, and she needed protection. Even before the 1683 staging of Los empenos, she had been publicly criticized by her confessor for her writing and her studies, but with such patronage, she could simply choose another confessor, as she states in Autodefensa espiritual. The criticism continued, but so did the protection.
In 1688 the Lagunas returned to Spain, taking with them much of what Juana had written to date, to be published there the following year as Inundacion castalida (Castalian fountain), with an enlarged edition printed in 1690. Within two years a second collection of her works was published, containing works sent to Spain by Juana (including the religious play El cetro de Jose); a third collection would be published after her death.
The loss of the Lagunas as protectors did not at first affect Juana: a secular play which she co-authored, Amor es mas laberinto, was acted before the new viceroy in 1689; her religious play El divino Narciso was published (and perhaps staged) in Mexico in 1690. But at the end of 1690 the bishop of Puebla, previously a good friend, published a letter she had written to him. The bishop titled Juana's letter Carta Atenagorica (Letter worthy of Athene), and introduced it with a letter of his own (under the pseudonym "Sor Filotea") urging her to abandon secular studies and writing and to concentrate on religious works. Juana responded to his letter with one of her own, Respuesta a Sor Filotea, defending herself and her studies.
The last five years of Juana's life have been the subject of as much or more debate as has her birth. The facts we have are these: A final set of her villancicos were performed in 1691, but not in the major cities of Mexico City or Puebla, where earlier villancicos had been presented. The years 1692 and 1693 saw flooding, disease, and food riots in Mexico City, which weakened the power of the viceregal court. In 1693 some kind of ecclesiastical investigation was begun that involved Juana. In 1694, Juana celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of taking her vows; at that time she signed documents that may have been conventional acts of contrition or that may have been conscious rejections of her past life. In the same year, she donated some (but not all) of her books and scientific instruments to be sold to help the suffering poor in the city. In the following year, she died, during an epidemic that killed most of the nuns at her monastery.
Was Juana coerced into abandoning all that she had valued, or did she make her own final choices? We simply don't know. Perhaps today it doesn't matter; Juana left her unsilenced voice to us in her life's writings.
On this page you'll find:
Links to helpful sites online.
Excerpts from translations in print:
Autodefensa espiritual (c.1681)
Los empenos de una casa (1683)
Ejercicios devotos (1680s?)
Ofrecimientos para el santo rosario (1680s?)
El Sueno (1680s?)
El cetro de Jose (late 1680s?)
El divino Narciso (1690)
Carta Atenagorica /Crisis sobre un sermon (1690)
Respuesta a Sor Filotea (1691)
Lyrics
Information about secondary sources.
========================================================================
1. Poems in English (some are alternative versions of the same poem):
(a) After an introduction by Sandra Sider, 35 sonnets translated by Sider.
(b) Eleven poems, translated by Michael Smith.
(c) Seven poems, translated by Alan S. Trueblood; the Spanish originals are given first.
(d) Click on "Inconsistencies in men's taste" for an alternative translation of the 17-stanza redondilla "Hombres necios" given just above, "You foolish men, who accuse"; you can also link to two other translations, these by Trueblood ("What mad ambition drives us," the ending of a longer poem; and a sonnet, "These lying pigments facing you"). For each the Spanish is also given.
(e) In a 2000 essay on translation by David Frye, use your browser's search function to go to "Juana" for three versions of four lines from "Hombres necios," with Frye's comment on the translations.
(f) Links to translations by Paul Anderson: a complete sonnet ("Rose, heaven's flower versed in grace"); and excerpts from the following: lines for a 1690 dedication of a church to Bernard of Clairvaux, two villancicos (on the apostle Peter and on Catherine of Alexandria), three other lyrics ("Prolix memory," "Something has been troubling me," and "Ascendent Raptor - speak,"); three plays (Love is a Greater Labyrinth, The Sceptre of Saint Joseph, and Martyr of the Sacrament). Also given are brief passages from the prose work Carta Atenagorica.
(g) Links to six sonnets, translated by Alix Ingbar; the originals are also given.
(h) Three sonnets (two versions of the first are given, as are the three originals); the translators include Margaret Sayers Peden and Amanda Powell.
(i) "This afternoon, my dear," translated by Susan Swan.
(j) "This artifice of colors," translated by Jason L. Martin (preceded by the original).
(k) Another version of the above, "This that you see, the false presentment planned," translated by Roderick Gill.
2. Prose in English:
(a) Brief passages from the c.1681 Audodefensa espiritual, a letter to the confessor who had publicly criticized Juana writing and her studying. The translation is by Alicia Zavala Galvan; the Spanish is also given (for more from Galvan, see below, under "In print").
(b) Not by Juana, but the Carta de Sor Filotea de la Cruz, the letter purported to be from one "Sor Filotea" but actually written by the bishop of Puebla and published as an introduction to Juana's Carta Atenagorica in 1690; the translation is by Trueblood.
(c) Juana's response to the above, Respuesta a Sor Filotea, translated by Electa Arenal and Amanda Powell.
3. For the original Spanish, from this page of Dartmouth's Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz Project, you may link to all of her works, as well as to the Spanish version of the 1650 sermon by Antonio Vieira (which led to the Carta Atenagorica) and the 1690 letter written by "Sor Filotea." The following directions may help:
(a) To get to an individual play or prose work, copy the title (to be sure you get all needed accent marks), click the appropriate link ("Plays" or "Prose"); at the search page, choose "Title" from the top menu, paste the title under it, and choose "Play" or "Essay" from the display menu.
(b) To get to the poetry, go to the search page, choose "Composition" from the top menu and "Poem" from the display menu; under "Composition," type in the singular form of a subhead from the first page: "romance" will bring 70 poems, "soneto" 67 poems, etc.
4. Other (perhaps more user-friendly) sites for the original Spanish:
(a) Excerpts from Autodefensa espiritual, Juana's c.1681 letter to her confessor, Antonio Nunez de Miranda.
(b) Links to Carta Atenagorica and Respuesta a Sor Filotea de la Cruz, as well as to the bishop of Puebla's Carta de Sor Filotea de la Cruz.
(c) Links to the complete Sueno and to 23 lyrics (click on Sections A & B).
(d) The redondilla titled "Satira filosofica" ("Hombres necios") is among those given just above, but at this site clicking on words and phrases will bring you their English translation.
(e) The complete loa of Divino Narciso.
(f) Excerpts from a 1683 villancico ("Tan sin numero, de Pedro") a complete romance ("Daros las Pascuas, Senora") and a sonnet ("Rosa divina que en gentil cultura"), as well as passages from the loa of Divino Narciso, from Respuesta, and from Sueno.
(g) Five Sonetos satirico-burlescos, described by the first Spanish editor as "Five Burlesque Sonnets in Which the Poetess Was Circumscribed by Rhymes Which had been Determined; Composed in a Moment of Relaxation."
(h) The first acts (with links to the following acts) of the plays, Los enpenos de una casa, and Amor es mas laberinto (in the latter, Acts 1 and 3 are by Juana).
5. Autographs and original editions:
(a) Along with Juana's 1669 signature on her profession document, the title page and two text pages of her first collection, the 1689 Inundacion castalida.
(b) In the bottom half of the page, a page from Juana's c.1681 Autodefensa espiritual.
(c) Links to all of the individual pages of the 1700 Fama y obras postumas. It includes Carta Atenagorica, Respuesta, and four romances.
6. Essays on Juana and on her non-dramatic writing:
(a) Stephanie Merrim's biographical essay is a useful introduction; it is followed by a bibliography of editions, translations, and secondary sources through 2003 (for information on a 1999 book by Merrim, see under "Secondary sources").
(b) "Baroque Consilience: Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, Theology, Natural Philosophy, and Feminism" (2007), by Abel Alves and Carol Blakney, presents Juana's interdisciplinary interests as an example of evolutionary development.
(c) "Sor Juana's Villancicos: Context, Gender, and Genre" (2001), by Natalie Underberg, describes the form and purpose of the villancico and discusses the freedom allowed Juana in the use of the vernacular genre. Underberg gives the original and her translation of parts of over a half dozen of Juana's poems.
(d) "An Apology for Knowledge: Gender and the Hermeneutics of Incarnation in the Works of Aemilia Lanyer and Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz" (2001), by B. R. Siegfried, compares Respuesta with the English poet's Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum, showing how each presents her defense of women by using the Christian texts and practices accepted by her male peers.
(e) In "Between God and Man: Sor Juana and The Divine Narcissus" (2000), Cathlyn A. Harris gives her reading of both the introductory loa and the allegorical play, seeing in the work an attempt to reconcile Spanish and Aztec views on the relationship between humans and the deity.
(f) "Rhetorical Curriculum from an Other America: Pedagogy and Belonging in Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz" (1999), by Julie A. Bokser, looks at the rhetorical theories revealed in Respuesta and in El divino Narciso.
(g) "Dialogism and the Sonnet: Silence, Reading and the Ethics of Knowledge in Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz" (1998), by Bradley J. Nelson, analyzes a pair of sonnets that form an exchange between a female lover and a male beloved; the sonnets are given in Spanish.
(h) In this chapter of a larger study, "Language, Discourse, Sign: Dialogism in the Texts of Shakespeare and Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz" (1997), Alfred Arteaga first gives a general introduction to Juana's life and work (especially Respuesta and the villancicos) and then analyzes the last of the set of villancicos that were staged in 1677 to honor the lay founder of an order dedicated to redeeming Christian captives, San Pedro Nolasco, which incorporates in the poem Spanish, Latin and Nahuatl. Arteaga gives both the original and his own translations of quoted passages.
(i) A biography and a link to a 1992 essay/lecture, "Difference and Indifference: The Poetry of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz," by Geoffrey Kantaris. The essay includes extensive quotation from the original and two passages in English, translated by Trueblood.
(j) "Signs of Nature and the Nature of Signs in the Sonnets of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz," (1989), by Edward H. Friedman, discusses three of Juana's sonnets that use the rose as symbol and sign; the originals of the poems are given at the end.
7. Essays, etc., on Los empenos de una casa:
(a) David Pasto's 2004 "The Trials of Translating and Directing The House of Trials," discusses the ways Pasto handled Juana's language and staging in his 1997 translation of the play. Several excerpts of his translation are given, as well as video links to scenes from his productions. (For another excerpt from Pasto, see "In print.")
(b) "Rough Translations in the House of Trials: Playing with Sor Juana's Los empenos de una casa" (2004), in which John Fletcher describes what he learned about Juana's skill as a dramatist during his 2001 staging of Pasto's English version of the play; as above, video clips are provided.
(c) "Engendered Theatrical Space and the Colonial Woman in Sor Juana's Los empenos de una casa" (2001), by Julie Greer Johnson, on the play's treatment of interior and exterior space, not only in the theatre, but also in the world of the characters and the author.
(d) A review by Michael Portillo of a production of Catherine Boyle's 2004 translation, House of Desires (for information on the print version, see "In print").
8. From the opening page of Dartmouth's Sor Juana Project, you can link to a chronology of Juana's life, to "Exegeses" for essays by scholars (see Robert Graves' 1953 essay in English), and to a bibliography of studies published 1995-97. The portrait given here was done about 1750 by Miguel Cabrera.
9. A more detailed chronology (note that scholars disagree as to the year of Juana's birth; this causes discrepancies as to other dates as well).
10. A substantial 2005 review by Linda Egan of seven studies (six Spanish-language and one English-language) on Juana written between 1993 and 2000. (For more information on the English-language work reviewed, The Three Secular Plays of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz: A Critical Study, see "Secondary sources.")
11. Other reviews (for excerpts from Trueblood and The Answer, see "In print"; for information on the other books' treatment of Juana, see "Secondary sources"):
(a) Frederick Luciani on two 1988 books: Margaret Sayers Peden's translation of Octavio Paz' Sor Juana, or, The traps of faith, and Alan S. Trueblood's A Sor Juana Anthology.
(b) Carol Maier on Electa Arenal's and Amanda Powell's 1994 The Answer / La Respuesta; and elsewhere, another review, this by Barbara Mujica.
(c) Sarita Tomayo on Pamela Kirk's 1998 study, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz: Religion, Art, and Feminism.
(d) Natalie Bennett on Jane Stevenson's 2005 study, Women Latin Poets: Language, Gender, and Authority, From Antiquity to the Eighteenth Century.
(e) Maria Cristina Quintero on Gordon Braden's 1999 study, Petrarchan Love and the Continental Renaissance.
12. Other portraits. etc.:
(a) Perhaps the earliest extant portrait of Juana, attributed to Juan de Miranda, who died in 1714. Some scholars believe that it was begun in the 1680s for Maria Luisa, Countess of Paredes. The Cabrera painting (see #7 above) was apparently based on this work.
(b) Probably from the later 1700s, a portrait whose inscription describes it as "a faithful copy" of a self-portrait by Juana. Link to "Information about the artwork" for comments on the painting, including a translation of the inscription and of a sonnet, "This that you gaze on, colorful deceit."
(c) An interesting collection of images: clicking on any of the seven illustrations will take you to a larger group --- portraits of Juana, maps of Mexico, portraits of Juana's contemporaries, pages from her letters and editions, etc.
========================================================================
[Alicia Z. Galvan's translation of Autodefensa espiritual provides the Spanish original on facing pages. In addition to a brief introduction by Galvan, the book has a prologue by Aureliano Tapia Mendez (who discovered the letter in 1980), which describes the manuscript and the history of the published work. (The introduction and prologue are given in both English and Spanish):]
Sor Juana, poet, nun, feminist, enigma: Autodefensa espiritual,
a poet's translation / Alicia Z. Galvan. San Antonio, Texas:
Galvart Press, c1998. (xxii, 40 p., [1] leaf of plate: ill. (some
col.)
LC#: PQ7296.J6 A9413 1998; ISBN: 0964483645
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"...ability that God has given me... without asking permission
from Your Reverence."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Audodefensa espiritual shows that Juana's problems about her writing and study long predate the 1690 crisis that would lead her to silence. The opening of Juana's c.1681 letter to Antonio Nunez de Miranda, her confessor, suggests that it is not the fact of his criticism but its newly public nature that has made her respond:]
[F]or some time now, I've been worried by the news that many people have been bringing me, that in their conversations with Your Reverence, you are always speaking badly of me, and only of me. That you criticize everything I do with such severe judgment that you have already made me appear the object of "public scandal" and that you have attributed to me other qualities that are no less hideous....
The cause of your anger (my very dear father and beloved sir) has been none other than the ability that God has given me in creating these wretched verses without asking permission from Your Reverence.
I have refused to the utmost to write verses, excusing myself all that is possible, and not because I find in them any reason that is neither right or wrong, but that I considered them (such as they are) of little importance. [pp. 3-7]
-------------------------------------------
"Will the books hinder only me?"
-------------------------------------------
[Juana told Nunez of the pressures brought to bear on her to write, by clerics and courtiers whom she could not refuse. She then moved on to speak of her studies, also criticized by Nunez. After citing the examples of the learned Catherine of Alexandria and Gertrud of Helfta:]
Why then, is something bad in me, when in all other women it was good? Will the books hinder only me in my salvation?...
Why is it that for a person to be saved, it is supposed to be through the road of ignorance, even though it is repugnant to their nature? [pp. 21-23]
-----------------------------------------------------
"In the world there are many theologians."
-----------------------------------------------------
[Nunez' criticisms had apparently been continuous "in the space of two years" (p.33). In the conclusion to her letter, Juana suggested that perhaps he would be happier if he were no longer her confessor:]
...[A]lthough I will lament such a great loss, I will never complain, that as God, Who created and redeemed me and bestows on me so many mercies will also provide the remedy for my soul and I hope that his kindness will never be lost, although it will be lacking in the guidance of Your Reverence; that there are many keys in order to enter heaven, and not only by one narrow judgment, but rather there are many mansions for different types of dispositions and in the world there are many theologians; and if they were lacking, salvation consists in wanting, more than in knowing, and this will depend more on me than in my confessor. [p.33]
========================================================================
[Michael McGaha has translated Juana's entire fete of Los empenos de una casa: the introductory loa with a concluding lyric, the interludes presented between the three acts of the play, and the concluding sarao. Most of the translation is given in prose; for all, the Spanish is given on facing pages. Susana Hernandez Araico's introduction discusses the ancillary parts as well as the play itself; the notes are useful in explaining topical references:]
Juana Inés de la Cruz, Sister. Los empenos de una casa
= Pawns of a house: (a Mexican Baroque fete); edition and introduction
by Susana Hernandez Araico; translated by Michael McGaha (Spanish
golden age theater). Tempe, AZ: Bilingual Press/Editorial Bilingue,
c2007. (xliv, 271 p.; 26 cm)
LC#: PQ7296.J6 E413 2007; ISBN: 9781931010177
Includes bibliographical references
---------------------------------------------------------------------
"I felt myself buffeted... and was unable to find shelter."
---------------------------------------------------------------------
[The 1683 Los empenos... is a farce, complete with
disguises and with overheard and misunderstood conversations.
One speech of the heroine, Leonor, is often seen as autobiographical;
if so, Juana did not view having been seen as a prodigy as wholly
helpful. (The passage also suggests that conformity of opinion
was quite as important at court as in the church.):]
From my earliest years I was inclined to study with such
ardent enthusiasm and with such anxious effort that i managed
to cover much territory in a short time. Industriously, I made
up for the shortage of time by the intensity of my work, so that
before long I became the center of attention and attracted great
admiration.
People venerated as inborn talent what in truth was but the just reward for my hard work.... They came to adore as a goddess the idol they had formed.... Passion put on such distorting eyeglasses that they exaggerated the proportions of my truly moderate gifts.... If anyone disagreed, whether out of contrariness or good sense, he dared not express his views, fearing that, as bizarre, his judgment might be considered uncouth, or that for disagreeing with all others he might be censured for his vanity.
Amidst all that applause, I felt myself buffeted by that mob and was unable to find shelter. Seeing myself beloved of so many, I could find no one to love. [Act I, pp.51-53]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"A novice playwright, as ignorant of verses in his youth...."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
[During one of the interludes presented between the acts, two actors criticize the author of the play they are watching: a novice playwright who is"scarce of whiskers." (Deza is the nobleman in whose home the play was apparently staged; Rojas, Moreto, and Calderon were major playwrights, and from the mother country.):]
Muniz: ...What idiot unschooled
imagined that poor Deza could be fooled
by a play like this or not be disappointed
by one so long and so very disjointed?
Arias: I'll tell you,... in confidence
A student wrote this comedy so trite,
And gave it to him, a novice playwright,
as ignorant of verses in his youth
as his face is scarce of whiskers, That's the truth.
Muniz: If I were a barber, I'd give him his first shave,
to cleanse him of those verses I do crave;
such hairy poetry makes my ears buzz;
I'd strip him of that premature peach fuzz;
for if his Excellency he sought to please,
couldn't he have chosen at his ease
a play by Rojas, Moreto, or Calderon?
For all their names are so well known,
I swear no one would dare to hiss or boo
but sit in silence till the play was through.
Arias: Do you not see
they chose it for its very novelty?
Muniz: Too bad it isn't really up to snuff,
for being new in simply not enough.
[And a few lines later, on plays like those of Rojas, Moreto, and Calderon:]
Muniz: All Spanish plays are easy to digest,
and lightly on the stomach do they rest.
Things passed through water are easier to chew,
like poached eggs or a well-cooked stew. [Second
Interlude, pp.171-73]
========================================================================
[Intended as an acting version, David Pasto's translation of Juana's first secular comedy makes a few changes in the text, but these are explained in the notes. Pasto's introduction discusses the play's structure and themes and reviews earlier critical studies:]
Juana Ines de la Cruz, Sister. The house of trials: a translation
of Los empeños de una casa [translated] by David Pasto
(Iberica, 1056-5000; vol. 21). New York: Peter Lang, c1997. (150
p.)
LC#: PQ7296.J6 E413 1997; ISBN: 0820431028
Includes bibliographical references
========================================================================
[Catherine Boyle's is another acting version, presented by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2004. Boyle has "pared down" what she calls "Sor Juana's indulgences," but unlike Pasto (above) does not indicate where omissions occur:]
Juana Ines de la Cruz, Sister. House of desires: a play /
translated by Catherine Boyle. London: Oberon, 2004. (112 p.)
LC#: PQ7296.J6 H68 2004; ISBN: 1840024445
========================================================================
[Grady C. Wray's book provides not only a translation of the Ejercicios devotos (with the Spanish original on facing pages) but also a detailed study of the work's intended audience, its influences, and its themes. Wray sees Juana using a conventional form but handling symbolism and iconography in a way that "embedded her views" (p. 18). The notes to the translation explain Juana's biblical references and show where she differed from her sources. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
The devotional exercises /Los ejercicios devotos of Sor Juana
Ines de la Cruz, Mexico's prodigious nun (1648/51-1695): a critical
study and bilingual annotated edition / Grady C. Wray (Mexican
studies; v. 6). Lewiston, N.Y.: E. Mellen Press, c2005. (vi,
224 p.)
LC#: BX4705.J83 W73 2005; ISBN:0773459995
Includes bibliographical references (p. [209]-220) and index
-----------------------------------------------------
"...so that all types of people can do them."
-----------------------------------------------------
[In her 1691 Respuesta Juana would describe (and enclose
for "Sor Filotea") two works written "many years
ago" and anonymously "printed at my pleasure for the
prayers of the public," and after speaking of her own ignorance
would say, "I know not why it is that in speaking of the
Most Blessed Mary, the most icy heart is set aflame" (Arenal
& Powell, pp. 101-103). The first of the two works to which
she refers was a set of spiritual exercises to be followed for
the nine days before the feast of the annunciation to Mary of
the birth of Jesus and on the feast day itself. Juana's introduction
describes her method:]
...I have readied these exercises in as easy a manner as possible so that all types of people can do them (even if they are busy or in poor health) since this does not stop those of stronger spirit and effort from adding, as they see fit, whatever they might wish for the greater benefit and honor of the Lord. And similarly, those who might not even be able to do what is indicated here may adapt the exercises at their own discretion. [pp.135-37]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Suffer with patience whatever is most repugnant to your
nature."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Each of the ten sets consists of a brief meditation, a prayer to Mary, and specific suggested exercises for the reader to perform. It is these last that are perhaps most revealing of Juana herself. For the first day (after speaking of God's creation of light):]
And, for this entire day about Light, endeavor to flee from all sin, even the shadow thereof. Abstain from impatience and murmurings, and suffer with patience whatever is most repugnant to your nature. [p.139]
-------------------------------------
" Oh, ladies and gentlemen!"
-------------------------------------
[And on the sixth day, after speaking of God's becoming man in Jesus (however, what Wray translates as "ladies and gentlemen" is in the original only "Senores"):]
If God's being, infinite, immaterial, and invisible, is not appropriate for our crude understanding,... then think about the Sacred Humanity of Christ, in His Passion and Incarnation, and give thanks for the great amount we owe Him. How difficult can it be? Oh, ladies and gentlemen! Let us somewhat encourage each other, and when the bell rings twelve, and it is time for prayer, let us perform an act of love and thanksgiving.... [p;169]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"She knew with very clear understanding all the causes...."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[In her meditation on the fourth day, Juana reveals her own intellectual enthusiasms in her wistful praise of Mary's "most perfect intuition." After describing the reverence shown by the sun, the moon, and the stars toward Mary:]
What would it have been like to see the way in which those celestial lights , although incapable of emotion, rendered obedience to their Queen; and the most high wisdom with which the great Lady understood with a most perfect intuition the natures and qualities of all those celestial lights: their tides, rotations, movements, retrogressions, eclipses, conjunctions, wanings and waxings, and all the effects they can produce in sublunar bodies: the source of rains, hail, ice and the frightening eruption of lightning?
She knew with very clear understanding all the causes of these admirable effects that for so many centuries have held scrupulous men in in suspense and so fatigued their understanding, without their ever achieving a science that perfectly explains such causes. [p.153]
========================================================================
Ofrecimientos para el santo rosario
[Pamela Kirk Rappaport's translations of Juana's religious writings include the Offerings for the Rosary as well as the Devotional Exercises (although not with the Spanish original). Other translations include seven sections of villancicos and six devotional poems (most of which do not appear to be available elsewhere in English), as well as Divine Narcissus, Carta Atenagorica, the letter from "Sor Filotea" and Respuesta. After a survey of the religious works, Rappaport's introduction focuses on Juana's theological thought. The book's notes are helpful, as are the bibliographies. (See the book's table of contents online.);
Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz: selected writings / translated
and introduced by Pamela Kirk Rappaport; preface by Gillian T.W.
Ahlgren (The classics of Western spirituality). New York: Paulist
Press, c2005. (xi, 323 p.)
LC#: BX4705 .J728A25 2005; ISBN: 0809105306, 0809140128
Includes bibliographical references (p. 313-319) and index
-------------------------------------------------
"You reproached yourself as a sinner."
-------------------------------------------------
[The second of the prose works identified by Juana in Respuesta was a set of 15 prayers, one to be said before each decade of the Rosary on the feast of the Sorrows of Mary. Eleven of the prayers speak of Mary's reaction to the sufferings of her son; the last four describe her sorrow over sinners. In the final prayer, Juana sees Mary feeling the guilt of "the sins of the just" (theologically an unusual view, but one that allows sinners to aspire to Mary's "profound humility"):]
You experienced the denial of St. Peter and the cowardice of the disciples. You felt their faults all the more than more serious sins of others because the ingratitude of children is more keenly felt than that of slaves. This was even more the case because (although you are the compendium and queen of all virtues) with you profound humility when you turned to look upon yourself, it appeared to you that you were also ungrateful toward your Son. You reproached yourself as a sinner, accusing yourself all the more pointedly and severely because of your more intimate connection to the Lord....
Grant us also a perfect humility so we recognize our defects, so that by doing penance for them in this life, we enjoy his love forever in life eternal. [pp.214-15]
========================================================================
[Margaret Sayers Peden's selection of Juana's writing includes both the Spanish and her translation of El sueno, as well as Respuesta, 22 lyrics, and passages from two plays and one villancico. Ilan Stavans' introduction provides a survey of Juana's life and work. The book's notes are helpful, but there are no superscripts in the text to lead you to them. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Poems, protest, and a dream: selected writings / Sor Juana
Ines de la Cruz; translated with notes by Margaret Sayers Peden;
introduction by Ilan Stavans (Penguin classics). New York, NY,
USA: Penguin Books, 1997. (xlix, 254 p.)
LC#: PQ7296.J6 A25 1997; ISBN: 0140447032
Includes bibliographical references (p. xlv-xlviii)
---------------------------------------
"...fired my will to persevere."
---------------------------------------
[In Respuesta, Juana will say that "the only piece I remember having written for my own pleasure was a little trifle they called El sueno" (Peden, p.65). In that poem she describes a dream of the soul's attempt to learn --- first about the entire universe, and, failing that, at least to understand a single object, such as a flower. In this too the human mind fails --- but continues to try. (The "bold charioteer" is Phaethon, who tried unsuccessfully to drive the chariot of the sun and who, for his efforts, was struck down by Zeus' thunderbolt):]
For if before a single object
---my intellect
reflected---reason
ignobly flees from confrontation
and, from a single
species---independent of all others and
free of any obvious relation---
comprehension turns away, dismayed
while, dreading failure, acumen evades
the daunting challenge, loath to embark upon
such an endeavor,
given its fear of
understanding badly, late, or never,
then how could one
deliberate on the complexities
of a mechanism so immense....
Other times---to a more
determined mind---it seemed faint-hearted
meekly to yield the laurel wreath before
the battle started;
and once again foremost
in my thought was that illustrious youth
---bold charioteer who tried to guide the sun---
whose brave, if hapless
paradigm fired my will to persevere
in that realm where
the spirit finds---more lesson learned than cause
for fear---paths toward daring that once
traveled cannot present sufficient danger
to prevent a second journey, that is,
a second try.
Neither the watery tomb,
---blue sepulcher to his ill-starred ashes---
nor vengeful, lethal, lightning flashes
deter, despite their warning,
the haughty spirit that,
scorning life, rashly will seek his doom
in order to immortalize his name. [lines
757-72, 781-802; pp.117-21]
-------------------------------------------------------------
"...an affirmation that left the World illuminated."
-------------------------------------------------------------
[Although the human desire for knowledge can never be fully satisfied, the poem ends with the coming of light; the darkness of night moved to the other hemisphere --- at least temporarily. These lines end the poem:]
...while our Hemisphere was inundated
by a flood of gold that radiated
from a solar
aureole that impartially restored
color to all things visible, and
gradually,
reactivated the external
senses, an affirmation that left
the World illuminated, and me awake. [lines
967-975; p.129]
========================================================================
[Luis Harss' was the first complete translation of El Sueno into English. As with Peden's book (above), it gives the Spanish and English on facing pages; what is distinctive about Harss' book is its commentary (pp. 74-134), in which a group of lines are given and then followed by a detailed explanation of the imagery, scientific references, etc.:]
Sor Juana's dream / translation, introduction, and commentary
by Luis Harss. New York, NY: Lumen Books, c1986. (146 p.)
LC#: PQ7296.J6 P718 1986; ISBN: 0930829077
English and Spanish parallel texts on opposite pages; introduction
and commentary in English. Bibliography: p. 137-141. Includes
index
========================================================================
[This anthology of Michael McGaha's translations of Spanish plays based on the Hebrew bible's story of Joseph includes Joseph's Scepter, Juana's allegorical verse play El cetro de Jose. Here the introductory loa and the play are given in prose, the songs in verse. The translation is intended both for reading and for "potential performance" (p.147). McGaha's general and specific introductions provide useful background. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
The story of Joseph in Spanish Golden Age drama / selected,
translated, and introduced by Michael McGaha. Lewisburg [Pa]:
Bucknell University Press; London: Associated University Presses,
c1998. (341 p.)
LC#: PQ6221.S76 1998; ISBN: 0838753809
Includes bibliographical references (p. 334-336) and index
----------------------------------------------
"...introducing your dictatorial rule."
----------------------------------------------
[Like El divino Narciso (below), El cetro de Jose was written to be staged for a general public on the feast of Corpus Christi. The characters of the loa celebrate the establishment of Christianity in Mexico until the entrance of "Idolatry, dressed as an Indian woman," who offers another view:]
In spite of my resistance you've managed to strip me of the crown I held so peacefully for centuries, introducing your dictatorial rule in my empires and preaching the Christian Law, but you couldn't have done it if your weapons hadn't first violently cleared a path for you....
...[M]y nation is up in arms, and I tell you on their behalf that if you won't let us offer human sacrifices, don't think you can count on our obedience. [pp.198-99]
--------------------------------------------
"It won't just make your life long."
--------------------------------------------
["Idolatry" defends human sacrifice as the highest honor paid to a god and the eating of the sacrificed flesh as a way to long life. The character "Faith" offers to show her another way:]
I shall place on the altars a holocaust so pure, a victim so rare, an offering so supreme that He will be not just human but divine as well. This sacrifice won't just placate the Deity; it will entirely satisfy Him. It won't just offer the momentary pleasure of a good meal, but infinite pleasure; and it won't just make your life long, it will actually make it eternal. [p.200]
--------------------------------------------------------------
"I'm like someone squinting to try to figure out...."
--------------------------------------------------------------
["Idolatry" is appropriately skeptical, so "Faith"
presents to her El cetro de Jose. The play is unusual
in that we view the action with and through the eyes of the devil
Lucifer and his companions, who in their confusion and irritation
provide comic relief. At the start Lucifer sees a young Joseph
sold by his brothers into Egyptian slavery, but because he has
already seen scenes (which we are shown) in which God promises
man a better future, he is worried:]
Even though it seems hard to believe, I can't escape the conclusion that God intends to save man... I'm especially troubled by the strange new sign represented by this handsome young man whose brothers just cruelly sold him. I'm not sure what I see in him. I don't know what to think. What is it that he stands for or mysteriously prefigures? I'm like someone squinting to try to figure out what a faraway painting is supposed to represent. [p.202]
--------------------------
"Come to the table!
--------------------------
[What Joseph "mysteriously prefigures" is, of course Jesus himself: resisting temptation, saving lives, forgiving his brothers (all of which irritate Lucifer no end). When Joseph sits at table with his eleven brothers, the character Prophecy identifies the symbolism:]
This table of another table,
these twelve men of another twelve
are symbols by which God has chosen
His true promise to foretell.
Come to the table, come to the table!...
This bread, fruit of human striving,
sustains, and with it man is fed,
but the other bread of life is
when it ceases to be bread....
Come to the table, come to the table!
-------------------------------
"And you out there----"
-------------------------------
[And at the play's very end, "Prophecy" sends Lucifer and his companions off stage, and then speaks to the audience in 1680s Mexico:]
Be off then, for where light appears, darkness cannot remain!
And you out there --- no longer sons of Jacob who saw only
dim glimpses of the sacrament, but sons of light.... you who
are happy sons of light, and enjoy full possession of what the
ancients could only hope for, bow down and worship this divine
mystery, this high sacrament. [p.224]
========================================================================
[Patricia A. Peters and Renee Domeier have translated the entire El divino Narciso, both the introductory loa and the allegorical play, with the English and the Spanish original given on facing pages. Peters' introduction is detailed, as are her end notes (although no superscripts lead to these). An appendix identifies biblical references in the allegory. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
The divine Narcissus = El divino Narciso / by Sor Juana Ines
de la Cruz; translated and annotated by Patricia A. Peters and
Renee Domeier. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1998.
(xxxiv, 202 p.)
LC#: PQ7296.J6 D5813 1998; ISBN: 0826319300, 0826318886
Includes bibliographical references and index
-------------------------------------------------------------------
"My will grows beyond these bonds; my heart is free."
-------------------------------------------------------------------
[From the loa, the words of "America," an Aztec woman whose forces have been defeated by Spanish soldiers but whose killing is prevented by the pleas of the Spanish woman, "Religion." The Aztec women says to the Spanish woman:]
If your petition for my life
and show of Christian charity
are motivated by the hope
that you, at last, will conquer me,
defeating my integrity
with verbal steel where bullets failed,
then you are sadly self-deceived.
A weeping captive, I may mourn
for liberty, yet my will grows
beyond these bonds; my heart is free,
and I will worship my own gods! [lines
226-236; p.19]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
"...in even Gentile pens the pow'r of images that flicker
light."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
[In the allegory that follows the loa, the heroine,"Human Nature," defends the use of the secular classical,"gentile," myth of Narcissus to tell the story of Christian salvation history:]
...and from the figure of Narcissus
I take his speeches, reading them
as metaphors which represent
the love of God, to see if these
dark sketches can be made to trace
the outlines and the clarity
of God's illuminated face;
it oft falls out that Holy Writ,
with human poetry agrees,
and they reveal that God has placed
in even Gentile pens the pow'r
of images that flicker light
upon His lofty mysteries; [lines
118-30; pp.47-49]
========================================================================
Carta Atenagorica /Crisis sobre un sermon
[Fanchon Royer's biography of Juana includes his translation (pp.86-120) of Carta Atenagorica, Juana's 1690 letter to the Bishop of Puebla (it would be published in the 1692 edition of her works as Crisis sobre un sermon). The book's appendix gives 26 of Juana's poems in the original Spanish:]
Royer, Fanchon. The tenth muse, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz.
Paterson, N.J., St. Anthony Guild Press, 1952. (xii, 179 p. illus.,
facsims.)
LC#: PQ7296.J6 Z83
Bibliography: p.176
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
"...beauty... employed to correct the errata of weak supports."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Forty years earlier a Jesuit, Antonio de Viera, had preached a sermon in Portugal that was published and became widely known in the Spanish-speaking world. Juana had read it and discussed it with her visitors, among them the Bishop of Puebla, who apparently asked her to write down her views. The letter's opening sentence, "admiring" Viera's ability to use rhetoric to hide the logical deficiencies in his argument:]
My very dear Sir:
From the generalities of a conversation which, on account of your kindness, you considered witticisms, there was born in Your Grace a desire to see written some discourses that I had produced extemporaneously; most of them being on the sermons of an excellent orator, some of them in praise of his premises, some disagreeing with his views, but always in admiration of his unequaled talent, which is more evident in the cases of the latter than in the former since when the foundation is solid, the beauty of a structure is not so transparent as when it is employed to correct the errata of weak supports.... [p.86]
---------------------------------------
"My task is to defend myself."
---------------------------------------
[Before beginning her task of disagreeing with Viera, Juana defines it. Vieira had argued against the views of Augustine of Hippo, Thomas Aquinas, and John Chrysotom as to the greatest gift Jesus had left his followers at his death:]
My business is to defend the premises of the three holy Fathers. I correct myself. My task is to defend myself, using the arguments of the three holy Fathers.
Now, believing that this is correctly stated, I shall plunge into my argument, following the same method utilized by the orator.... [p.88]
-----------------------------------------------------
"But there was also Judith... and Debora."
-----------------------------------------------------
[Juana goes on to defend the arguments of each of the "holy Fathers" with examples of her own and with criticism of Vieira's logic. At the beginning of the letter, she had recognized that her words might seem "presumptuous in a sex so discredited by all the world in the subject of letters" (p.86); at the the end of her main argument she returns to the subject:]
...[I]t should be sufficient mortification for a man --- so distinguished in all ways that I believe there has not been a man who has ventured to reply to him --- to see that an ignorant woman, in whom this kind of study is so inappropriate and distant from her sex, does dare it. But there was also Judith, who wielded arms, and Debora, the judge. [pp.115]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
"...not in speculative discourses but to His practical service."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
[After ending her argument against Vieira, Juana goes on to explain her own views. She then ends her letter with a prayer:]
May His majesty grant us the grace to know His goodnesses and to reciprocate them, which is the greatest knowledge, and to ponder his His benefits, not in speculative discourses but to His practical service, so that His negative benefits may become positive, finding in us a worthy disposition, so as to break the dam of the stemmed torrent of the divine liberality which our ingratitude restrains and represses. [p.120]
========================================================================
[The translation of the 1691 Respuesta by Electa Arenal and Amanda Powell is accompanied by the original and by an introduction that provides a detailed analysis of the work. The book also includes Powell's translation of lyric passages from three villancicos, but, oddly, no translation of the letter from "Sor Filotea" to which Respuesta is a response (you can see that online):]
The answer: including a selection of poems = La respuesta
/ Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz; critical edition and translation
by Electa Arenal and Amanda Powell. New York: Feminist Press
at the City University of New York, c1994. (xii, 196 p.)
LC#: PQ7296.J6 R413 1994; ISBN:1558610766, 1558610774
Includes bibliographical references (p. 181-189) and index.
-----------------------------------------------------------
"This is my answer, and these are my feelings."
-----------------------------------------------------------
[In the letter from"Sor Filotea" that prefaced his publication of Carta Atenagorica, the Bishop of Puebla had urged Juana to abandon her secular studies for the study and explication of Scripture. She responds:]
This... is my usual reply to those who urge me to write, and the more so in the case of a sacred subject: What understanding do I possess, what studies, what subject matter, or what instruction...? They can leave such things to those who understand them; as for me, I want no trouble with the Holy Office, for I am but ignorant and tremble lest I utter some ill-sounding proposition or twist the true meaning of some passage.
I do not study to write, nor far less in order to teach (which would be boundless arrogance in me), but simply to see whether by studying I may become less ignorant. This is my answer, and these are my feelings. [p.47]
----------------------------------------------------
"I have attempted to entomb my intellect."
----------------------------------------------------
[Juana goes on to describe her love of learning as her passion:]
For ever since the light of reason first dawned in me, my inclination to letters was marked by such passion and vehemence that neither the reprimands of others (for I have received many) nor reflections of my own (there have been more than a few) have sufficed to make me abandon my pursuit of this native impulse that God Himself bestowed on me.
His Majesty knows why and to what end He did so, and He knows that I have prayed that he snuff out the light of my intellect, leaving only enough to keep His Law. For more than that is too much, some would say, in a woman; and there are even those who would say that it is harmful. His Majesty knows too that, not achieving this, I have attempted to entomb my intellect together with my name and to sacrifice it to the One who gave it to me; and that no other motive brought me to the life of Religion....
I thought I was fleeing myself, but --- woe is me! --- I brought myself with me, and brought my greatest enemy in my inclination to study, which I know not whether to take as a Heaven-sent favor or as a punishment. For when snuffed out or hindered with every exercise known to Religion, it exploded like gun-powder; and in my case the saying "Privation gives rise to appetite" was proven true. [pp.47-51]
----------------------------------------------------
"I studied all the things that God created."
----------------------------------------------------
[On those who had tried to prevent her from studying:]
They achieved this once, with a very saintly and simple mother superior who believed that study was an affair for the Inquisition and ordered that I should not read. I obeyed her (for the three months or so that her authority over us lasted) in that I did not pick up a book. But with regard to avoiding study absolutely, as such a thing does not lie within my power, I could not do it. For although I did not study in books, I studied all the things that God created, taking them for my letters, and for my book all the intricate structures of this world.... [pp.73]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"What can we women know, save philosophies of the kitchen?"
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Continuing with examples of studying without books, Juana goes to a topic that a "Sor Filotea" would know about, but that a bishop of Puebla wouldn't:]
Well, and what shall I tell you, my Lady, of the secrets of nature that I have learned while cooking? I observed that an egg becomes solid and cooks in butter or oil, and on the contrary that it dissolves in sugar syrup....
I shall not weary you with such inanities, which I relate simply to give you a full account of my nature, and I believe this will make you laugh. But in truth, my Lady, what can we women know, save philosophies of the kitchen? It was well put... that one can philosophize quite well while preparing supper. I often say, when I make these little observations, "Had Aristotle cooked, he would have written a great deal more." [p.75]
---------------------------------------------
"Then where is my transgression?"
---------------------------------------------
[After defending the value of study of the liberal arts for women and the necessity for both men and women to be learned and virtuous if they are to teach:]
Then where is my transgression, if I refrain even from that which is permissible to women --- to teach by writing --- because I know myself to lack the abundant talent needed for it...?
If my crime lies in the "Letter Worthy of Athena," was that anything more than a simple report of my opinion, with all the indulgences granted me by our Holy Mother Church? For if she, with her most holy authority, does not forbid my writing, why must others forbid it?...
If the letter be crude --- as he [an unknown critic] rightly says it is --- then let him laugh at it.... I do not say that he should praise me, for just as I was free to disagree with Vieira, any person shall be free to disagree with my judgment. [pp.91-93]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I must force myself not to write this very letter in rhyme."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Juana then speaks of her poetry:]
Now, if I turn my eyes to my much-maligned skill at writing in verse --- so natural to me that indeed I must force myself not to write this very letter in rhyme...; seeing this facility for writing poems condemned by so many and so vilified, I have sought quite deliberately to discover what harm there might be in them.
[She looks at poets from the prophets through the Fathers of the Church, and at the sibyls and Mary; if they wrote:]
Then what harm can verses cause in and of themselves? For their misuse is no fault of the art, but of the bad practitioner who debases them, fashioning devil's snares of them. And this occurs in all the faculties and sciences.
And if the evil lies in their being used by a woman, we have just seen how many women have used them most laudably; then what evil lies in my being one? I confess straightway my rough and uncouth nature; but I wager not a soul has ever seen an indecent verse of mine. [pp. 95-97]
========================================================================
[Alan S. Trueblood's anthology appears to contain the fullest collection of the wide range of Juana's lyrics: 41 complete poems and excerpts from 13 villancicos, as well as a passage from El Divino Narciso; for all of these, the Spanish is given as well. Trueblood also gives, in English, El sueno (with a helpful prose summary), the letter from "Sor Filotea," and Respuesta. His introduction and notes are useful. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
A Sor Juana anthology / translated by Alan S. Trueblood; with
a foreword by Octavio Paz. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 1988. (xv, 248 p.)
LC#: PQ7296.J6 A28 1988; ISBN: 0674821203, 0674006763
Includes bibliographical references and index
------------------------------------
"A virgin has no sex at all."
------------------------------------
[A number of Juana's courtly lyrics are online, so here are parts of poems on other topics. First, from a poem ("Senor: para responderos") which the original editor in Spain introduced as "In reply to a gentleman from Peru, who sent her clay vessels while suggesting she would better be a man":]
Such things are not my concern;
with one thought I came to this spot:
to be rid of those who'd inquire
whether I am a woman or not.
In Latin it's just of the married
that uxor, or woman, is said.
A virgin has no sex at all---
or indeed she has both, being unwed.
So the man who looks upon me
as a woman, shows want of respect,
since one embracing my state
is foreclosed to the other sex.
Of one thing I'm sure: that my body
disinclined to this man or that,
serves only to house the soul---
you might call it neuter or abstract. [p.31]
-----------------------------------------------------------------
"To see our love returned is so insistent a craving...."
-----------------------------------------------------------------
[From a poem ("Traigo commigo un cuidado") on the difficulty of loving an invisible God:]
I recall---were it not so---
a time when the love I knew
went far beyond madness even,
reached excesses known to few,
but being a bastard love,
built on warring tensions,
it simply fell apart
from its own dissensions.
But oh, being now directed
to the goal true lovers know,
through virtue and reason alone
it must stronger and stronger grow.
Therefore one might inquire
why it is I still languish.
My troubled heart would make reply:
what makes my joy makes my anguish.
Yes, from human weakness,
in the midst of purest affection,
we still remain a prey
to natural dejection.
To see our love returned
is so insistent a craving
that even when out of place,
we still find it enslaving.
It means nothing in this instance
that my love be reciprocated;
yet no matter how hard I try,
the need persists unabated.
If this is a sin, I confess it,
if a crime, I must avow it;
the one thing I cannot do
is repent and disallow it.... [pp.87-88]
-----------------------------------------
"I am not at all what you think."
-----------------------------------------
[From an unfinished draft of an epistolary romance ("Cuando, numenes divinos") found in Juana's cell after her death. The second volume of her works, published in Spain in 1692, probably reached Mexico City by early 1693. Here she seems to reply to the 12 poets and 7 theologians who had praised her in that book:]
When, divine geniuses,
O sweetest swans, tell me when
my trifles ever deserved
to occupy your attention?...
I am not at all what you think.
What you've done is attribute to me
a different nature with your pens,
a different talent with your lips.
Borne on your feather-pens' plumes,
my flight is no longer mine;
it's not as you'd like to imagine,
not what your fancy depicts....
How often, how very often
amidst the billowing clouds
of so much unwarranted praise---
eulogy so misapplied---
how often I would have been dazzled
by the glitter of light-struck seas,
only, like Phaethon to drown
or to risk my life like Narcissus,
had I not possess within me
a remedy unfailing:
knowing myself was my cure,
as his ugly feet are the peacock's....
Your praises have been lavished
on an image of your idea;
being yours, it surely deserves
the tribute of your applause.
Celebrate that likeness
of what you have apprehended
and let the laurel wreath
be restored to your own brows.
Might it be the surprise of my sex
that explains why you are will
to allow an unusual case
to pass itself off as perfection?
If so, the pleasure you've brought me
suffices by way of reward,
with no need to waste on me
such serious applause.
One who found such lofty wits
in praising me so benign,
could only conclude that they'd let
the heart overrule the mind.............[the draft stops here] [pp.103-09]
========================================================================
[Carl W. Cobb has translated all of Juana's 70 sonnets (including four used in longer works), with the Spanish of each given on the facing page. The introduction by Melvin S. Arrington discusses Juana's use of Baroque style; he also gives a brief annotated bibliography. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
The sonnets of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz in English verse
/ translated by Carl W. Cobb (Hispanic literature; v. 66) . Lewiston,
N.Y.: E. Mellen Press, c2001. (155 p.)
LC#: PQ7296.J6 A22 2001; ISBN: 0773473386
Includes bibliographical references (p. 10-11)
========================================================================
[Octavio Paz' 1982 biographical study, Las trampas de le fe, translated by Margaret Sayers Peden, is probably still the best place to start. It is the most detailed introduction to Juana's life and writing, and every later writer on Juana must deal with Paz' interpretations, if only to disagree with them. The text provides extensive quotations from Juana, and an appendix gives a complete translation of Autodefensa espiritual. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Paz, Octavio. Sor Juana, or, The traps of faith / translated
by Margaret Sayers Peden. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1988.
(x, 547 p.: ill.)
LC#: PQ 7296 .J6 Z72513 1988; ISBN: 067482105X
Includes index
---------------------
[Frederick Luciani's study looks at the ways in which Juana consciously presented herself, her poetic calling, and her fame to her readers. To do this he provides close readings of the verse portrait of Lisarda in Inundacion castalida, of Juana's contributions to the play Amor es mas laberinto, of Respuesta a Sor Filotea, and (more briefly) of Leonor's speech in Los empenos de una casa and Juana's last unfinished romance. Luciani gives cited passages in the original and in his own translation; his notes and bibliography provide thorough coverage of studies through 2000. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Luciani, Frederick. Literary self-fashioning in Sor Juana
Ines de la Cruz (Bucknell studies in Latin American literature
and theory). Lewisburg: Bucknell University Presses, c2004. (201
p.: ill.)
LC#: PQ7296.J6 L6954 2004; ISBN:0838755801
Includes bibliographical references (p. 183-194) and index
----------------------
[Shelby Thacker has translated Guillermo Schmidhuber's study
of three plays, one certainly Juana's, one partially hers, and
one sometimes attributed to her: Los empenos de una casa,
Amor es mas laberinto, and La segunda Celestina. The
book gives detailed summaries of each play and translations of
some passages. The bibliography includes earlier English-language
studies of Juana's dramatic works. (See
the book's table of contents online.):]
The three secular plays of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz:
a critical study / Guillermo Schmidhuber in collaboration with
Olga Martha Pena Doria; translated by Shelby Thacker (Studies
in Romance languages; 43). Lexington: University Press of Kentucky,
c2000. (xiv, 208 p.: ill.)
LC#: PQ7296.J6 Z874 2000; ISBN: 0813120888
Includes bibliographical references (p. [179]-191) and index
----------------------
[Pamela Kirk's study is of interest because it looks in detail at Juana's religious works, which others critics often do not. Kirk summarizes and discusses the sacramental plays El martir del sacramento and El cetro de Jose as well as El divino Narciso; she looks at the two devotional works, Ejercicios Devotos and Ofrecimientos para el Santo Rosario, and at the villancicos honoring Mary and Catherine of Alexandria; she discusses Carta Atenagorica and Respuesta a Sor Filotea as Juana's defenses of her own theological views. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Kirk, Pamela. Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz: religion, art, and
feminism. New York: Continuum, 1998. (180 p.)
LC#: PQ7296 .J6 Z8 K58 1998; ISBN: 082641043X
Includes bibliographical references (p. [159]-176) and index
----------------------
[Stephanie Merrim's wide-ranging study looks at how Juana's
works are similar to those of other women writers of the 1500s
and 1600s, finding constant themes (e.g., the querelle des
femmes) rather than influences. The whole book is interesting,
but if you wish to focus on what Merrim says about Juana, use
the detailed index. All quoted passages are translated, either
from published sources or by Frances M. Lopez-Morillas. (See
the book's table of contents online.):]
Merrim, Stephanie. Early modern women's writing and Sor Juana
Ines de la Cruz. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, c1999.
(xliv, 323 p.)
LC#: PQ7296.J6 Z8 M46 1999; ISBN:0826513301, 0826513387
Includes bibliographical references (p. 297-310) and index
------------------------
[Jane Stevenson's detailed survey includes a brief but useful section (pp. 401-406) on Juana's seldom discussed Latin poetry; Stevenson gives her own translation of Latin passages from Neptune alegorica and from a villancico on St. Peter. Also valuable is an appendix, "Checklist of women Latin poets and their works" (in which Juana is listed under her family name "Asbaje") which identifies all of the editions of the Latin poems. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Stevenson, Jane. Women Latin poets: language, gender, and
authority, from antiquity to the eighteenth century. Oxford;
New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. (xiv, 659 p.)
LC#: PA8050.S74 2005; ISBN:0198185022
Includes bibliographical references (p. [596]-616) and index
------------------------
[Emilie L. Bergmann's essay in this collection, "Optics
and Vocabularies of the Visual in Luis de Gongora and Sor Juana
Ines de la Cruz," compares the purpose and imagery of Juana's
Sueno with two of the works of the Spanish poet (in
its first printed edition, Sueno is described as composed
"in imitation of Gongora" ). Bergmann sees Juana's
poem as illustrating a change from the relatively passive neo-Platonism
of the early 1600s to a Cartesian belief in an active search
for truth. (See
the book's table of contents online.):]
Writing for the eyes in the Spanish Golden Age / edited by Frederick
A. de Armas. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, c2004. (310
p.: ill.)
LC#: PQ6064 .W75 2004; ISBN: 0838755712
Includes bibliographical references and index.
-------------------------
[The final chapter of Gordon Braden's study includes a discussion
(pp.129-161) of Juana's adaptation of Petrarch's lyrical style:
Braden sees Juana as "both Petrarchan and more so"
(p.139). The emphasis is on Juana's courtly poems, but examples
of the intellectual and religious poems are treated as well:]
Braden, Gordon. Petrarchan love and the continental Renaissance.
New Haven: Yale University Press, c1999. (xv, 198 p.)
LC#: PN1181 .B73 1999; ISBN: 0300076215
Includes bibliographical references (p.163-194) and index
------------------------
[This collection includes an essay by Anne J. Cruz, "Juana
and Her Sisters: Female Sexuality and Spirituality in Early Modern
Spain and the New World," which shows how ecclesiastical
changes in Spain in the 1500s and early 1600s affected the lives
of religious women like Juana.
(See the book's table of contents online.):]
Recovering Spain's feminist tradition / edited by Lisa Vollendorf.
New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2001. (xii,
407 p)
LC#: HQ1692 .R44 2001; ISBN: 0873522737, 0873522745
Includes bibliographical references and index
========================================================================
Updated 05-07-08
Return to the index of "Other Women's Voices."