Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz has sometimes been called "The Phoenix of America," as she is by far the most accomplished and globally read author to come out of the early Spanish-colonized Americas. Writing from New Spain (present day Mexico) , Sor Juana composed brilliant and biting poetry, wrote fiery letters in defense of her own creative spirit and the education of women, as well as dramas like the perfectly formed Spanish Golden Age style piece, House of Desires.
POETRY
Of her poetry, scholar Brenda Logan has said the following:
Driven by her craving for knowledge, this complex woman won recognition for her talents from diverse environments—the convent, a succession of viceregal courts and the members of the intellectual community. […] Sor Juana displayed selectively appropriate elements of her personality as she fulfilled her obligations to the roles each of these environments demanded. Not surprisingly, she displays in her lyric poetry an interplay of the various aspects of her intricate self that parallels in diversity the multiple roles she assumed in life. [...]
The powerful, productive intellectual self Sor Juana shows [in her poetry] is perhaps her most studied one. [Such poetry] highlight the conflicts, both internal and external, which her stubbornly rational, persistently curious mind caused for her. Interestingly, there is rarely any generic identification in these verses; the burden of her thirst for knowledge transcends personal and sexual boundaries. Her sonnets decrying the emptiness of the exterior (145 and 147, for example) reflect her preoccupation with the development of her inner self to its greatest potential. At one point she even cries for momentary relief from her pressing curiosity.
One of the most commonly overlooked [identity of Sor Juana] is the playful, witty, sometimes bitingly sarcastic—a la Caviedes—face she shows. Her epigrams betray an intellectual but childlike delight as she plays gleefully with words and human weaknesses.
In Sor Juana's lyric poetry, we see clearly this blending of reverie and reality. The profusion of revealed "selves" mixed with intertwined fact and fiction produces a kaleidoscopic effect for the reader attempting to distinguish the "real" Sor Juana. It is within this very kaleidoscope, however, that she may be found—in this colorful, ever-changing series of patterns composed of her multiple selves.
LETTERS
Of her letter writing, particularly her response to "Sor Filotea" scholar Joan Kennedy says the following:
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz in her Reply to Sor Filotea de la Cruz (Respuesta a Sor Filotea, 1691) offers a feminine voice speaking out amidst a patriarchal, Enlightenment society in seventeenth-century Mexico. A spirited defense of female intellectual pursuits flows from the pen of this Mexican nun in an epistolary response to the Bishop of Puebla. In addressing the Bishop's attack on her right to scholarship and literary expression, Sor Juana's letter exudes with satire, rage, and determination to defend her pursuit of the life of the mind. While asserting her rights, she speaks for other women as well. The power of her pen and expansive intellect becomes clear as she develops her argument with biblical allusions, theological quotations, and classical references. Her list of historical evidence of notable women from the past supplies ample examples to persuade any reader of the breadth of her scholarship and her thirst for knowledge. To this she adds an autobiographical account of her intellectual inquiry to promote her self-defense. The Reply ironically emerges during a time that the patriarchal dominance of the Roman Catholic Church placed women in subservient roles in society as well as within church hierarchy. Sor Juana's testimony of her own experience within this historical context makes one appreciate the struggle she experiences. [Sor Juana] was an early feminist voice reaching out to her Mexican society in an effort to challenge the status quo.
Works Cited:
Logan, Brenda. “The Kaleidoscopic Self: Sor Juana Inés de La Cruz in Her Own Poetry.” Letras Femeninas, vol. 11, no. 1/2, 1985, pp. 76–83. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23022528. Accessed 7 Mar. 2024.
Kennedy, Joan. SOR JUANA INÉS DE LA CRUZ: IN DEFENSE OF FEMININE INTELLECT. Scarborough: National Association of African American Studies, 2005. ProQuest. Web. 7 Mar. 2024.
