![]() Much of the rest is pretty religious verse, rounded out with an old-fashioned allegorical moral play in which Christ appears improbably in the person of Narcissus. Much of it is effete court poetry, full of pseudo-pastoral conceits and obsequious praise of noblemen. But as far as I can tell from this translation, her work would attract little attention if she were a man, or even a European. ![]() Eventually she renounced writing for more monastic pursuits, and a couple of years later, in 1695, she died of an illness contracted while ministering to the sick.Īlas, the music of her Spanish is inaccessible to me. A book of her poems was published in Europe, to some acclaim. Not being interested in marriage, she became a nun, though she continued to study and write. She came to the viceregal court in Mexico City and became a favorite. She was Mexican, the illegitimate daughter of a Spanish officer, and showed a precocious interest and ability in learning. I got this book because I found Sor Juana in a list of great writers of the Western tradition and I had never heard of her, let alone read her. The emergence of Sor Juana De La Cruz in the late seventeenth century was a cultural miracle and her whole life was a constant effort of stubborn personal and intellectual improvement. She died of a cholera epidemic at the age of forty-three, while helping her sick companions. Shortly before her death, she was forced by her confessor to get rid of her library and her collection of musical and scientific instruments so as not to have problems with the Holy Inquisition, very active at that time. She had several drawbacks to her activity as a writer, a fact that was frowned upon at the time and that Juana Inés de la Cruz always defended, claiming the right of women to learn. Jerome, remaining there for the rest of her life and being visited by the most illustrious personalities of the time. Two years later she entered the Order of St. In 1667, Juana Inés de la Cruz entered a convent of the Discalced Carmelites of Mexico but soon had to leave due to health problems. Sponsored by the Marquises of Mancera, she shone in the viceregal court of New Spain for her erudition and versifying ability. In 1665, admired for her talent and precocity, she was lady-in-waiting to Leonor Carreto, wife of Viceroy Antonio Sebastián de Toledo. Thanks to her grandfather's lush library, Juana Inés de la Cruz read the Greek and Roman classics and the theology of the time, she learned Latin in a self-taught way. As a child, she learned Nahuatl (Uto-Aztec language spoken in Mexico and Central America) and read and write Spanish in the middle of three years. ![]() Juana Inés de la Cruz was born in a town in the Valley of Mexico to a Creole mother Isabel Ramírez and a Spanish military father, Pedro Manuel de Asbaje. On its own, it will be welcomed as the first representative selection in English of her verse and prose. The Anthology was conceived as a companion to the English-language edition of Octavio Paz’s magisterial study of Sor Juana. Her long philosophical poem, First Dream, is translated in its entirety, as is her famous autobiographical letter to the Bishop of Puebla, which is both a self-defense and a vindication of the right of women to cultivate their minds. The short poems, and excerpts from her play The Divine Narcissus, are accompanied by the Spanish texts on facing pages. Alan Trueblood has chosen, in consultation with Octavio Paz, a generous selection of Sor Juana’s writings and has provided an introductory overview of her life and work. Many of her lyrics reflect the worldliness and wit of the courtly society she moved in before becoming a nun some, composed to be sung, offer charming glimpses of the native people, their festivities and colorful diversity. She handled with ease the intricate verse forms of her day and wrote in a wide range of genres. Her poetry is surprising in its scope and variety. She deserves to be known to English-speaking readers for another reason as well: she speaks directly to our concern for the freedom of women to realize themselves artistically and intellectually. In our century she was rediscovered, her works were reissued, and she is now considered one of the finest Hispanic poets of the seventeenth century. Sor (Sister) Juana Inés de la Cruz was acclaimed in her time as “Phoenix of Mexico, America’s Tenth Muse” a generation later she was forgotten. Here is a new voice―new to us―reaching across a gap of three hundred years.
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