Adriana Hernández Rascón
El Divino Narciso is an auto sacramental preceded by a loa that shows a
hybrid discourse between two cosmogonies: the Spanish and the indigenous. Sor
Juana endows the loa with a Creole vision to approach the social context in which it
unfolded, likewise, the auto sacramental shows the insertion of biblical texts,
Calderonian texts and to a lesser extent Ovidian texts, as well as theological themes,
classical and pre-Hispanic mythology -with more presence in the loa- as part of its
Novo-Hispanic component.
The first part of the auto sacramental El Divino Narciso consists of a loa, that
is, of an introduction or prologue whose function was to present to the public the
main work that succeeded it. It is the preamble of a dramatic text that was in vogue
in Spanish theater between the 16th and mid-19th centuries, and its main function
was the exposition in very brief form of either secular or sacred texts.
In conclusion, the loa of El Divino Narciso is a beautifully elaborated prologue
by the author to show in a peculiar way the conquest of the American continent by
the Europeans, where the use of allegories becomes significant because Sor Juana
sought to offer a less violent reading of the historical events that changed the
Mesoamerican culture forever.