Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, The Traps of Faith, Octavio Paz

  • Generalizing from “La Peor de Todas”: “Her personal history was made of the same perpetually fluctuating substance as the history of her world.”--Paz.

  • On film and history: Behmberg is no Stone.

  • Intellectual life in the Indies

  • Inquisition: “a much over-publicized and misconceived institution.”

  • Sor Juana, “first feminist of the New World”

  • The traps: what, why, and how.

Historical generalization and Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz

  • Intellectual life in the Indies

    • confined to cities, particularly capitals
    • 17th century seasoning: from chronicles to literature, and peninsular to creole
    • intellectual expression: exuberant intricacy, formalism, allegory, allusion to authorities

  • Inquisition: “a much over-publicized and misconceived institution.”

    • Books circulated more freely
    • Institution was widely supported
    • Repression was rare: in 250 years, 30 executions in Lima.

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, 1651-95

  • on love:

    “Who thankless flees me, I with love pursue; Who loving follows me, I thankless flee: To him who spurns my love, I bend the knee.”

  • on gender: “If Aristotle had done some cooking, he would have written more.”

  • a rationalist passion for knowledge: “...just to see if by studying, I might grow less ignorant.”

  • on method: “...the expositors are like an open hand and the ecclesiastics like a closed fist.”

“First feminist of the New World”

  • Course text, 238-39: “reason and emotion”, “science and revelation”, fame and envy

  • Paz emphasizes feminism, as well:

    • a nun, an intellectual, a woman
    • misogyny of church authorities
    • reason, observation, and science

  • Reason: “If a trained hand does not prevent the foliage of the tree from becoming too dense, its wild tangle will rob the fruit of its substance.”

  • Gender: (to St. Catherine of Alexandria): “There in Egypt, all the sages by a woman were convinced that gender is not the essence in matters of intelligence.”

Marquis de Mancera, Viceroy of New Spain, 1660-64

  • First (of 6) viceregal patron of Sor Juana

  • Sponsored public exam of Sor. Juana’s genius by 40 men of letters

  • Marchioness of Mancera, the first of 5 vicereinas to support Sor Juana

  • Friend of Sor Juana’s confessor (-1695)

Archbishop Fray Payo Enriquez de Rivera, Viceroy 1673-80

  • Crown and clergy united in same person

  • Arranged commission for Sor Juana to write Allegorical Neptune for triumphal arch (1680)

  • Sor Juana enjoyed vice-regal patronage, 1660 - 1693 (during terms of 8 viceroys)

Conde de Paredes, Viceroy of New Spain, 1680-86 (d. 1693)

  • Crown vs. clergy: Viceroy Paredes vs. Archbishop Aguiar y Seijas

    • secular entertainments
    • protocol

  • Sor Juana to her patron, Countess of Paredes:

    “To women you bring great esteem to learned men, acute offense, by proving gender plays no part in matters of intelligence.”

  • With his death in 1693, Sor Juana lost her most important ally

First Book

  • Published 1689 in Madrid

  • Dedicated to Condesa de Paredes, patroness of 2nd vol. (Seville, 1692).

  • Continued their correspondence at least until 1693…

  • Circles of women were important.

Antonio Nuñes de Miranda, S.J. (d. 1695), confessor to Sor. Juana 1660s-1683 (!), 1693-95

  • Censor to the Inquisition for 32 years

  • humble, chaste misogynist: dressed like a pauper; thankfully near-sighted (so as not to see women)

  • Mortification: scourged himself “...73 times in reverence for the 73 years of the Blessed Virgin’s life…”

Archbishop Francisco Aguiar y Seijas, 1681-1698?

  • Noted for his religiosity, piety, charity, prudery mortifications, and misogyny.

  • “…and then he burned the books of plays.”

  • “…he tried to avoid even a glimpse of a woman’s face.”

    “Why, people do you persecute me so? In what do I offend, when but inclined with worldly beauties to adorn my mind, and not my mind on beauty to bestow?” -- SJIC

Conde de Galve, Viceroy 1688-1696

  • Condesa de Galve also supported Sor Juana

  • Conde--authority weakened by riot of June, 1692

  • Fearful of divine retribution, acquiesced to Aguiar y Seijas’ “reforms”

Sor. Juana’s signature in her own blood, 8 Feb. 1694

  • “I, the worst of all”--a common form of self-vilification in 17th c.

  • “And as a sign of how greatly I wish to spill my blood in defense of these truths, I sign with it.”

  • silver jubilee of her profession, not the “renunciation” of her studies or thinking

Traps of Faith: What, Why, How

  • Bishop of Puebla on Sor Juana: “What a pity that so rich a mind should so debase itself in petty matters of this world.”

  • Why: the “defect” of being a woman

  • How:

    • The Reply
    • The Riot
    • Loss of patronage

  • Did she recant? Or just give away the library?

Don Carlos Sigüenza y Góngora

  • Creole savant

  • Intellectual companion of Sor. Juana

  • The name and fame of “Mother Juana Inés de la Cruz will only end with the world.”

End

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