Obra selecta, I

by Juana Inés de la Cruz, Margo Glantz (Foreword), Maria Dolores Bravo Arriaga (Collaborator)

Selección y prólogo: Margo Glantz. Cronología y bibliografía: María Dolores Bravo Arriaga.

Se pensaría que poco hay que añadir a lo que ya se ha dicho y estudiado sobre la inmensa escritora mexicana Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648-1695) desde su propia época, cuando era ya una de las grandes voces de la literatura en la lengua española y para colmo una “indiana”, hasta los días actuales, que siguen solicitando nuevas evaluaciones acerca de su inagotable obra. Estos dos volúmenes que le dedica Biblioteca Ayacucho dan cuenta, desde luego, de las principales modalidades de su poesía y su sentido autoral. Pero el prólogo, confiado a otra mujer, a la narradora y ensayista mexicana Margo Glantz, seguramente será una importante sorpresa y es una contribución dentro de los nuevos enfoques que es posible adelantar hoy sobre Sor Juana.

447 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Juana Inés de la Cruz was born in a town in the Valley of Mexico to a Creole mother Isabel Ramírez and a Spanish military father, Pedro Manuel de Asbaje. As a child, she learned Nahuatl (Uto-Aztec language spoken in Mexico and Central America) and read and write Spanish in the middle of three years. Thanks to her grandfather's lush library, Juana Inés de la Cruz read the Greek and Roman classics and the theology of the time, she learned Latin in a self-taught way. In 1665, admired for her talent and precocity, she was lady-in-waiting to Leonor Carreto, wife of Viceroy Antonio Sebastián de Toledo. Sponsored by the Marquises of Mancera, she shone in the viceregal court of New Spain for her erudition and versifying ability. In 1667, Juana Inés de la Cruz entered a convent of the Discalced Carmelites of Mexico but soon had to leave due to health problems. Two years later she entered the Order of St. Jerome, remaining there for the rest of her life and being visited by the most illustrious personalities of the time. She had several drawbacks to her activity as a writer, a fact that was frowned upon at the time and that Juana Inés de la Cruz always defended, claiming the right of women to learn. Shortly before her death, she was forced by her confessor to get rid of her library and her collection of musical and scientific instruments so as not to have problems with the Holy Inquisition, very active at that time. She died of a cholera epidemic at the age of forty-three, while helping her sick companions. The emergence of Sor Juana De La Cruz in the late seventeenth century was a cultural miracle and her whole life was a constant effort of stubborn personal and intellectual improvement.

Reviews

[Sophie · Rating 3 out of 5]

"¿Por qué ha de ser malo que el rato que yo había de estar en una reja hablando disparates o en una celda murmurando cuanto pasa fuera y dentro de casa, o pelear con otra, o riñendo a la triste sirviente, o vagando por todo el mundo con el pensamiento, lo gastara en estudiar?
Y más cuando Dios me inclinó a eso y no me pareció que era contra su ley santísima, ni contra la obligación de mi estado, yo tengo este genio, si es malo, yo me hice, nací con él y con él he de morir."