Portrait Of Sor Juana Inés De La Cruz Ap Art History

[Kerby Kolpack]

Throughouthistory Sor Juana's significance to different communities has varied significantly, having been presented as a candidate for Catholic sainthood, a symbol of Mexican nationalism, freedom of speech, women's rights, sexual diversity, and others, making her a figure of great controversy and debate to this day.

Juana was born in San Miguel Nepantla (presently Nepantla de Sor Juana Ins de la Cruz) near Mexico City[2] as the illegitimate daughter of Don Pedro Manuel de Asuaje y Vargas-Machuca, a Spanish navy captain from the Canary Islands involved in colonial transatlantic shipping and trade, and Doa Isabel Ramrez de Santillana y Rendn, a distinguished criolla, whose father leased the Hacienda de Panoaya, near Mexico City.

There are two different baptism registrations that have been attributed to her, one under the name of "Juana" in 1648, and another one under the name of "Ins" in 1651, still a matter of academic research and debate.[3] There is, nevertheless agreement that she was one of the three children that Doa Isabel Ramrez de Santillana had out of wedlock with Don Pedro de Asuaje. Despite having had an occasional contact with her father as a child, Sor Juana's infancy occurred entirely around her mother's family in the hacienda of Panaoya, in Amecameca, leased by her maternal grandfather, and home to the ample Ramrez de Santillana family.[4] Among her relatives, several women with the name "Ins" have been noted, included her grandmother Ins de Brenes, her maternal-aunt Ins Ramrez de Santillana, and her first-cousin Ins de Brenes y Mendoza, married to a grandson of Antonio de Saavedra Guzmn, the first ever published American-born poet.[5]

Later described as child prodigy, Sor Juana was educated at home at the Hacienda de Papaya, becoming fluent in both Latin and Nahuatl,[6] and learning philosophy, and mathematics. She was given free access to her grandfather's private library.[7]

During her childhood, Ins often hid in the hacienda chapel to read her grandfather's books from the adjoining library, something forbidden to girls. By the age of three, she had learned how to read and write Latin. By the age of five, she reportedly could do accounts. At age eight, she composed a poem on the Eucharist.[8] By adolescence, Ins had mastered Greek logic, and at age thirteen she was teaching Latin to young children. She also learned the Aztec language of Nahuatl and wrote some short poems in that language.[4]

In 1664, at the age of 16, Ins was sent to live in Mexico City. She asked her mother's permission to disguise herself as a male student so that she could enter the university there, without success. Without the ability to obtain a formal education, Juana continued her studies privately. Her family's influential position had gained her the position of lady-in-waiting at the colonial viceroy's court,[7] where she came under the tutelage of the Vicereine Donna Eleonora del Carretto, a member of one of Italy's most prominent families, and wife of the Viceroy of New Spain Don Antonio Sebastin de Toledo, Marquis of Mancera. The viceroy Marquis de Mancera, wishing to test the learning and intelligence of the 17-year-old, invited several theologians, jurists, philosophers, and poets to a meeting, during which she had to answer many questions unprepared and explain several difficult points on various scientific and literary subjects. The manner in which she acquitted herself astonished all present and greatly increased her reputation. Her literary accomplishments garnered her fame throughout New Spain. She was much admired in the viceregal court, and she received several proposals of marriage, which she declined.[8]

After joining a nunnery in 1667, Sor Juana began writing poetry and prose dealing with such topics as love, environmentalism, feminism, and religion.[9][10] She turned her nun's quarters into a salon, visited by New Spain's female intellectual elite, including Doa Eleonora del Carreto, Marchioness of Mancera, and Doa Maria Luisa Gonzaga, Countess of Paredes de Nava, both Vicereines of the New Spain,[11] among others. Her criticism of misogyny and the hypocrisy of men led to her condemnation by the Bishop of Puebla,[12] and in 1694 she was forced to sell her collection of books and focus on charity towards the poor.[13] She died the next year, having caught the plague while treating her sisters.[14]

In 1667, she entered the Monastery of St. Joseph, a community of the Discalced Carmelite nuns, as a postulant, where she remained but a few months. Later, in 1669, she entered the monastery of the Hieronymite nuns, which had more relaxed rules, where she changed her name to Sor Juana Ins de la Cruz, probably in reference to Sor Juana de la Cruz Vzquez Gutirrez who was a Spanish nun whose intellectual accomplishments earned her one of the few dispensations for women to preach the gospel. Another potential namesake was Saint Juan de la Cruz, one of the most accomplished authors of the Spanish Baroque. She chose to become a nun so that she could study as she wished since she wanted "to have no fixed occupation which might curtail my freedom to study."[15]

In the convent and perhaps earlier, Sor Juana became intimate friends with Don Carlos de Sigenza y Gngora, who visited her in the convent's locutorio.[14] She stayed cloistered in the Convent of Santa Paula of the Hieronymite in Mexico City from 1669 until her death in 1695, and there she studied, wrote, and collected a large library of books. The Viceroy and Vicereine of New Spain became her patrons; they supported her and had her writings published in Spain.[15] She addressed some of her poems to paintings of her friend and patron Mara Luisa Manrique de Lara y Gonzaga, daughter of Vespasiano Gonzaga, Duca di Guastala, Luzara e Rechiolo and Ins Mara Manrique, 9th Countess de Paredes, which she also addressed as Lsida.

In November 1690, the bishop of Puebla, Manuel Fernndez de Santa Cruz published, under the pseudonym of Sor Filotea, and without her permission, Sor Juana's critique of a 40-year-old sermon by Father Antnio Vieira, a Portuguese Jesuit preacher.[12] Although Sor Juana's intentions for the work, called Carta Atenagrica are left to interpretation, many scholars have opted to interpret the work as a challenge to the hierarchical structure of the Catholic Church.[16] Along with Carta Atenagrica, the bishop also published his own letter in which he said she should focus on religious instead of secular studies.[15] He published his criticisms to use them to his advantage against the priest, and while he agreed with her criticisms, he believed that as a woman, she should devote herself to prayer and give up her writings.[17]

In response to her critics, Sor Juana wrote a letter, Respuesta a Sor Filotea de la Cruz (Reply to Sister Philotea),[18] in which she defended women's right to formal education.[19] She also advocated for women's right to serve as intellectual authorities, not only through the act of writing, but also through the publication of their writing.[19] By putting women, specifically older women, in positions of authority, Sor Juana argued, women could educate other women. Resultingly, Sor Juana argued, this practice could also avoid potentially dangerous situations involving male teachers in intimate settings with young female students.[20] In 1691, she was reprimanded and ordered to stop writing after the exposure of a private letter in which she wrote of the right of women to education.[7]

In addition to her status as a woman in a self-prescribed position of authority, Sor Juana's radical position made her an increasingly controversial figure. She famously remarked by quoting an Aragonese poet and echoing St. Teresa of vila: "One can perfectly well philosophize while cooking supper."[21] In response, Francisco de Aguiar y Seijas, Archbishop of Mexico joined other high-ranking officials in condemning Sor Juana's "waywardness." In addition to opposition she received for challenging the patriarchal structure of the Catholic Church, Sor Juana was repeatedly criticized for believing that her writing could achieve the same philanthropic goals as community work.[19]

By 1693, she seemingly ceased writing to avoid risking official censure. Although there is no undisputed evidence of her renouncing her writing, there are documents showing her agreeing to undergo penance.[13] Her name is affixed to such a document in 1694, but the tone of the supposed handwritten penitentials is in rhetorical and autocratic, in contrast to her normally lyrical style. One is signed "Yo, la Peor de Todas" ("I, the worst of all women").[13] She is said to have sold all her books,[8] then an extensive library of more than 4,000 volumes, as well as her musical and scientific instruments. Other sources report that her defiance toward the Church led to the confiscation of all of her books and instruments, although the bishop himself agreed with the contents of her letters.[22]

Of more than one hundred unpublished works,[23] only a few of her writings have survived, which are known as the Complete Works. According to Octavio Paz, her writings were saved by the vicereine.[24]

First Dream, a long philosophical and descriptive silva (a poetic form combining verses of 7 and 11 syllables), deals with the shadow of night beneath which a person falls asleep in the midst of quietness and silence.[25] There night and day animals participate, either dozing or sleeping, all urged to silence and rest by Harpocrates. The person's body ceases its ordinary operations,[26] which are described in physiological and symbolical terms, ending with the activity of the imagination as an image-reflecting apparatus: the Pharos. From this moment, her soul, in a dream, sees itself free at the summit of her own intellect; in other words, at the apex of a pyramid-like mount, which aims at God and is luminous.[27]

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