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AKC 19 January 2012 ‘ Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. A 17th Century Voice of Feminism and the Stirrings of the Creole’ Revolution Catherine Boyle Key quotations and information 1 . Life of Sor (Sister) Juana Inés de la Cruz (in brief) Juana Ramírez de Asbaje y Santillana (1651 ? - 1695) was born in San Miguel Nepantla, near Mexico City. Her mother was a criolla (of Spanish descent born in New Spain, as Mexico was then known) and her father Basque. That they were not legally married, and that her father qui ckly disMppeMred, cMst M shMdoR over certMin Mspects of JuMnM’s, not leMst the creMtion of a stable place in society. The little information we have about her early years comes from her fMmous defence of Romen’s right to leMrning, in Rhich she tMlks of her ‘inclinMtion’ toRMrds letters ‘from the first light of reMson’, illustrMting this Rith evocMtive Mnecdotes: hoR, Mt the Mge of three, she folloRed her sister to M girls’ school Mnd persuMded the schoolmistress to teMch her to reMd, Rhich she did ‘in M sho rt spMce of time’; hoR she stopped eMting cheese for its damaging effects on the brain, and would cut her hair as a useless adornment when she failed in her learning; how, at the age of six or seven, on learning that there existed in Mexico City schools an d universities, she tried to persuade her mother to allow her to disguise herself as a boy so that she could attend; and of how, on not being able to do so, she read from her grMndfMther’s librMry, leMrning so much thMt people Rere MmMzed by her knoRledge ‘Mt Mn Mge Rhen mMny hMve not even leMrned to speMk Rell’. At the age of about eight, Juana was sent to the home of relatives in Mexico City, where she stayed until her presentation at the court of the new vice regal couple in 1664. She very quickly beca me a favourite of the vicereine, Leonor Carreto, and in this vibrant environment of festivals, ceremony and coquetry Juana shone. This was the first in a series of important relationships with viceroys; It was a later vicereine, the Countess of Paredes, wh o backed the first publicMtion of Sor JuMnM’s Rork in SpMin ( Castalian Inundation , 1689). The fame of her learning was such that in 1664 the viceroy put her to the test against forty learned men of the city, Rhose questions, he lMter sMid, she demolished ‘ like a royal galleon defending itself against M feR roRing boMts’. In 1667 Juana made her first attempt to take the veil when she entered the Convent of the Barefoot Carmelites. But she left after only a few months, for this order did not provide the env ironment she sought, and in 1669 she entered the Convent of Saint Paula of the Order of St Jerome, where she stayed until her death. Of her decision to become a nun, Sor Juana said that ‘Mlthough I kneR thMt this life hMd mMny things thMt Rere repugnMnt to my nMture … it RMs less thMt the Mbhorrence I felt for mMrriMge’. In fMct, the convent RMs the only spMce possible for M woman who wanted to pursue a life of learning and writing, and the Hieronymite Order allowed her a high level of autonomy. Most of her writing, both sacred and secular, and often on commission, dates from her years in the convent. The relatively lax regime of the Hieronymites allowed her to receive visits, and from behind the convent grille she held RhMt might best be described Ms ‘sMl ons’, Rhere she discoursed Rith the most learned men of the period. It was in this setting that she delivered a brilliant challenge to a famous sermon on the greatest acts of love by Jesus Christ. She was asked by the Bishop of Puebla to write it, and in 1 690 he published it (according to Sor Juana without her consent) Ms the ‘ Letter Worthy of the Wisdom of Athena ’, Rith M prefMce in Rhich, using the pseudonym Sor Filotea, he advises her to devote herself to areas of study befitting a nun. Shaken by what s he saw as an act of betrayal, Sor Juana waited three months before she delivered her ‘Response of the Poetess to the Most Illustrious Sor FiloteM’ , a virtuoso defence of the right of woman to an intellectual life, deftly matching the autobiographical with a dMzzling Mccount of femMle leMrning Mnd M defiMnt decoding of men’s (Mnd the Church’s) attitudes towards women of letters. Ket, the ‘Response’ is Mlso Mn Mct of contrition, for she understood thMt she RMs MnsRering to the hierarchy of the Church, and t hMt she Rould soon be forced into silence. It RMs Sor JuMnM’s last significant work. Soon after, she gave up her extensive library and renounced her earthly ways. She retook her vows, signing her protestation of faith in blood. And she prepared, and again signed in blood, her death certificate, asking her sisters to fill in the date of the death of ‘the Rorst RomMn thMt hMs ever been, I, the Rorst in the Rorld’. She died on April 17 16E5 in an outbreak of the plague. 2. From ‘Response of the Poetess to the Most Illustrious Sor FiloteM’ i And in truth, I have written nothing except when compelled and constrained, and then only to give pleasure to others; not alone without pleasure of my own, but with absolute repugnance, for I have never deemed myself one who ha s any worth in letters or the wit necessity demands of one who would write; and thus my customary response to those who press me, above all in sacred matters is, what capacity of reason have I? What application? What resources? What rudimentary k nowledge of such matters beyond that of the most superficial scholarly degrees? Leave these matters to those who understand them; I wish no quarrel with the Holy Office, for I am ignorant, and I tremble that I may express some proposition that will cause o ffence or twist the true meaning of the some scripture. I do not study to write, even less to teach – which in one like myself were unseemly pride – but only to the end that if I study, I will be ignorant of less. This is my response, and these are my feel ings. (Translated by Margaret Sayers Peden , 11 ) ii And I have prayed that He dim the light of my reason, leaving only that which is needed to keep his Law, for there are those who would say that all else is unwanted in a woman, and there are even those who would hold that such knowledge doesinjury. And my Holy Father knows too that as I have been unable to achieve this (my prayer has not been answered), I have sought to veil the light of my reason – along with my name – and to offer it up only to Him who bes towed it upon me, and He knows that none other was the cause for my entering into Religion, notwithstanding that the spiritual exercises and company of a community were repugnant to the freedom and quiet I desired for my studious endeavours. (13) And so I entered the religious order, knowing that life here entailed certain conditions (I refer to superficial, and not fundamental, regards) most repugnant to my nature; but given the total antipathy I felt for marriage, I deemed convent life the least unsuitab le and the most honourable I could elect if I were to insure my salvation. (15) Being a Catholic, I thought it abject failing not to know everything that can in this life be achieved, through early methods, concerning the divine mysteries. And being a n un and not a laywoman, I thought I should, because I was in religious life, profess the study of letters. 4. On knowledge, the Jesuits and Sor Juana At the time that Sor Juana was writing, education and the pursuit of knowledge were integral to imperia l policies in Mexico, and the Jesuits took the most active role in this endeavour. They built their power base s brokers and producers of knowledge through their colleges in Mexico City and other urban centrs in New Spain, wherin they educated what would b ecome the male Creole class, modelled on their own image, and reached out to a wider public in the role of purveyors of Mexican culture. By means of a combination of printed materials, manuscript and performance (sermons, rhetorical disputations, theatrica l performances ) their educational institutions promoted the pursuit of knowledge – a contradictory Christian humanism – and religious orthodoxy in the name of public good. Jesuit knowledge reached out to a wide - ranging, albeit hierarchical, network throug h the cultural manifestations the order engendered both through communication with the elite and, to a lesser extent, through popular communication (in this case through the spectacle of theatre and religious art and architecture). This colonial knowledge was clearly gendered as masculine, and, indeed, manly. The performative and thus public nature of the knowledge - driven spces of the Jesuit colleges did not Relcome Romen’s pMrticipMtion Mnd indeed Mctively sought to inhibit it iii . 3 . Sonnet 149 Spiritedly, She Considers the Choice of a State Enduring Unto Death Were the perils of the ocean fully weighed, no man would voyage, or, could he but read the hidden dangers, knowingly proceed or dare to bait the bull to frenzied rage. Were prudent rider o verly dismayed, should he contemplate the fury of his steed or ponder where its headlong course might lead, there’d be no reining hMnd to be obeyed. But were there one so daring, one so bold that, heedless of the danger, he might place, upon Apollo’s reins , emboldened hand to guide the fleeting chariot bathed in gold, the diversity of life he would embrace and never choose a state to last his span. (Translated by Margaret Sayers Peden) ALSO: Note this production by the Royal Shakespeare Company, on the life of Sor Juana: http://www.rsc.org.uk/whats - on/the - heresy - of - love/ i Margaret Sayers Peden, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. Poems, Protest and a Dream (London: Penguin Books, 1997) iii Stephanie Kirk and Sarah Rivett, ‘Religious Transformations in the Ear ly Modern Americas’, Early American Literature , Vol. 45, No. 1, 61 – 91 (82)