Sor Juana
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Sor Juana (November 12, 1651 [or 1648, according to some biographers] – 17 April 1695), also known as Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz or, in full, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz de Asbaje y Ramírez, was a self taught Novohispano scholar, nun, poet, and a writer of the baroque school.
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[edit] Biography
She came from a family in the small village of San Miguel de Nepantla, near Amecameca (modern-day México State). Christened Juana Inés Ramírez, she was a great lover of literature and learned Latin before she was ten. She was exceptional not only for her intelligence but also because girls in 17th century Ibero-America rarely received schooling. By the age of fifteen, Juana was considered a child prodigy and became a lady-in-waiting to the viceroy's wife in 1664. Her life in the palace was a decisive influence, as her work is full of references to courtly life.
After four years in the viceroy's court, and seeking freedom to pursue knowledge, Juana decided to become a nun. She entered the Convent of San Jerónimo, where she remained until her death in 1695. By her own account, life in the convent indeed gave her freedoms that she would never have had if she had married, as was expected of respectable women. For instance, she often held discussions about natural science with intellectuals in her private suite, and devoted much of her time to writing poems and plays.
Given her background as an educated, outspoken woman, and born in an environment of a native population that eternally fought against Spanish domination, it is not surprising that Sor Juana wrote literature centered on freedom. In the poem "Hombres necios" she rebels by defending a woman's right to be respected as a human being. "Hombres necios" (Stubborn men) criticises the sexism of the society of her time, and pokes fun at men who condemn prostitution, as men are those who benefit the most from its existence. She also has a philosophical approach to the relative morality of prostitution. This was exemplified when she posed the question, 'Who sins more, she who sins for pay or he who pays for sin?' In the romantic comedy entitled Los empeños de una casa about a brother and a sister entangled in a web of love, she writes using two of her most prominent themes, love and jealousy. Yet, these emotions are not presented in a moralizing way, but in the spirit of her lifetime interests, the pursuit of liberty and knowledge.
Unfortunately for Sor Juana, her outspoken stance incurred the displeasure of the Roman Catholic Church. This was especially dangerous for her when one considers the historical context – it was the time of the Counter Reformation and anyone who challenged society's values could easily get into trouble with the all-powerful Church. Things came to a climax in 1690, when a letter was published that attacked Sor Juana's focus on the sciences, and suggested that she should devote her time to theology.
In response, Sor Juana wrote a letter entitled Respuesta a Sor Filotea in which she defended women's right to any education they desired. But she soon found that the Catholic Church was not at all sympathetic to her views. The Archbishop of Mexico joined other high-ranking officials in condemning Sor Juana's "waywardness". Finally around 1693 Sor Juana appears to have decided to stop writing, rather than risk any further censure. There is no evidence of her actually renouncing her devotion to letters, and the documents of self-humiliation to which she supposedly put her name in 1694 have the tone of mere rhetorical formulae (one of these is signed "Yo, la peor del mundo" (I, the worst woman in the world)). However, she was forced to sell all her books, an extensive library of some 4,000 volumes, as well as her musical and scientific instruments. In April 1695, plague hit the convent, with great loss of life. Sor Juana contracted the disease and died at four in the morning on April 17.
[edit] Fictionialised biographical treatments
Sor Juana's life was portrayed in the 1990 film Yo, la peor de todas ("I, The Worst of All") directed by María Luisa Bemberg. Sor Juana was played by Spanish actress Assumpta Serna. In this film a lesbian relationship between her and a noblewoman is strongly suggested. Her life was fictionalized in Alicia Gaspar de Alba's 1999 work Sor Juana's Second Dream : A Novel. A 2004 novel by Canadian author W. Paul Anderson, Hunger's Brides, also deals with the life of Sor Juana. A play was also written based on her life and decision to convert; "Los pecados de Sor Juana" or "The Sins of Sor Juana," written by Karen Zacarías. In addition to a play, an opera entitled, "With Blood, With Ink" with music by Dan Crozier and a libretto by Peter Krask was completed in 1990 and performed at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University. The opera takes place on the night of Juana's death and flashes back to various, pivotal moments in her life.
[edit] The Traps of Faith
Arguably the most important book devoted to Sor Juana is by Octavio Paz (who won the 1990 Nobel Prize in Literature). Paz's book, titled Sor Juana Or, the Traps of Faith[1], is a work devoted to a contemplation of her poetry, life, and times in the context of the "other" history of New Spain.
Octavio Paz describes how he had been drawn to her work most of his life. Paz had long been intrigued by the enigmas of Sor Juana's personality and career. Why did she become a nun? How could she renounce her lifelong passion for writing and learning? Paz knew that such questions could be answered only in the context of the world in which she lived, and so he begins his study with a portrayal of the life and culture of New Spain and the political and ideological forces at work in that autocratic, theocratic, male-dominated society, in which the subjugation of women was absolute.
Just as Paz illuminates Sor Juana's life by placing it in its historical setting, so he situates her work in relation to the traditions that nurtured it. Paz singled out the qualities that distinguish her work and mark her uniqueness as a poet. For Octavio Paz, Sor Juana's writings, like her life, epitomize the struggle of the individual, and in particular the individual woman, for creative fulfillment and self-expression.
[edit] References
- ^ translated by Margaret Sayers Peden (Harvard University Press, 1989 ISBN 0-674-82105-X / paperback, 1990 ISBN 0-674-82106-8)
[edit] External links
- The Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Project
- Academic resource on the poetry of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
- On-line facsimile edition of Sor Juana's Fama y obras posthumas
- Six sonnets in Spanish with English translations
- Ibero-American Electronic Text Series by the University of Wisconsin Digital Collections Center includes the following online texts by this author: Loa para el auto sacramental de "El Divino Narciso"
