Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
Important Dates:
1648: Juana Inés Ramírez born as an illegitimate daughter to an upper-class Creole woman and a
Spanish captain in San Miguel Neplantla, Mexico.
1664: Enters the Court and serves as a “lady in waiting”—became well-known for her beauty and was
thought of as a prodigy—the Viceroy even assembled a “panel of scholars” to test her intelligence.
1666: Enters Convent of San Jerónimo (Saint Jerome) at age 18; wrote many poems, plays, studied
philosophy, music and science.
1691: Writes Respuesta a Sor Filotea (The Poet’s Answer to the Most Illustrious Sor Filotea de la Cruz—see
page 248 in the Norton), defending the right of women to study and write. This text is often thought
of as evidence that Sor Juana became a nun in order to pursue her own intellectual interests (not
necessarily to pursue a religious vocation) and in this text we see a response to pressure from the
Ecclesiastical hierarchy to abandon her studies. The text is Sor Juana’s defense for her right to devote
herself to secular and artistic endeavors.
1694: Forced to abjure and sell her books and musical and scientific instruments because of the
controversy surrounding her writings—which took more of a feminist tone than a religious one. Sor
Juana responded by devoting herself to a rigorous penance, giving up all studies and writing.
1695: Plague hits convent; Sor Juana contracts plague and dies on April 17th. She was 46.
Culture & Context:
Seventeenth-century Mexico, known then as Nueva España (New Spain), was a highly autocratic society, ruled by
Viceroys sent from Spain and rotated in practice every seven or eight years.
The archbishop held great power, and the Santo Oficio, or Holy Inquisition, was greatly feared.
The religious climate of Mexico was much more orthodox than in Spain: Catholicism was a well implanted religion in
Spain, but in the Americas it was relatively new.
The colonial state was highly centralized:
~the indigenous people were governed by specific laws, and there were special statutes for different ethnic
groups -- blacks, mulattoes, indians, mestizos, creoles, and Spaniards
~religious orders were governed by specific laws, as were virtually all different social groups
~ownership of land was strictly controlled -- much was owned by the Church, while the state was interested in
preventing the rise of large, powerful, creole land-owners who might represent a source of antagonism to
the rule of Spain.
The Court was the centre of the moral, literary and aesthetic codes and conventions.
Poem 164
[In which she answers a suspicion with the eloquence of tears]
This afternoon, my darling, when we spoke,
and in your face and gestures I could see
That I was not persuading you with words,
I wished you might look straight into my heart;
and Love, who was assisting my designs,
succeeded in what seemed impossible:
for in the stream of tears, which anguish loosed
my heart itself, dissolved, dropped slowly down.
Enough unkindness now, my love, enough;
don’t let these tyrant jealousies torment you
nor base suspicions shatter your repose
with foolish shadows, empty evidence:
in liquid humor you have seen and touched
my heart undone and passing through your hands.
The Petrarchan (Italian) Sonnet
Poem 164
[In which she answers a suspicion with the eloquence of tears]
This afternoon, my darling, when we spoke,
and in your face and gestures I could see
That I was not persuading you with words,
I wished you might look straight into my heart;
and Love, who was assisting my designs,
succeeded in what seemed impossible:
for in the stream of tears, which anguish loosed
my heart itself, dissolved, dropped slowly down.
Enough unkindness now, my love, enough;
don’t let these tyrant jealousies torment you
nor base suspicions shatter your repose
with foolish shadows, empty evidence:
in liquid humor you have seen and touched
my heart undone and passing through your hands.
octave: asks a question or
poses a problem
Other literary devices at work…
Culteranismo: extreme complexity of
image and metaphor…a feast of
language!
The Baroque: exuberance of detail,
metaphors of metaphors, sensuality of
rhythm and sound of words
sestet: responds to
question/problem
Alexander Pope
Biographical Notes:
1688: Born on May 21, in London, to Catholic parents. Pope’s father was
a cloth merchant.
1700: Because of the anti-Catholic sentiments of the time, the Pope
family had to move (in compliance with a statute forbidding Catholics
from living within 10 miles of London or Westminster) to Binfield
(Berkshire). This year also marks when Pope contracted TB, a disease
which left him with a lifetime of health problems (hunchback, respiratory,
chronic muscle pain, etc.). Later in life, when attacked by critics, Pope was
called a “hunchbacked toad.”
1704: Pope becomes introduced into some of London’s literary circles,
thanks to William Wycherley who was impressed by Pope’s early poems.
Alexander Pope, age 7
1709: Pastorals was published, gained public attention.
1711: Essay on Criticism appeared—Pope was 23 and this piece offered advice to beginning writers, despite Pope’s own
young age. This is the year that Pope met and befriended Jonathan Swift (one of the few contemporaries he did not
criticize).
1714: The Rape of the Lock was published—a satirical mock-epic that tells the story of a “high-society” quarrel. This is the
work that Pope is still best known for.
1719: Publishes translations of Homer—makes a substantial amount of money.
1733/34: Publication of Essay on Man (a philosophical poem, written in 4 epistles, and in heroic couplets).
1744: Pope dies on May 30. The day before his death he received the Last Rites of the Catholic Church.