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A Sor Juana Anthology
Here is a new voice―new to us―reaching across a gap of three hundred years. Sor (Sister) Juana Inés de la Cruz was acclaimed in her time as “Phoenix of Mexico, America’s Tenth Muse”; a generation later she was forgotten. In our century she was rediscovered, her works were reissued, and she is now considered one of the finest Hispanic poets of the seventeenth century. She deserves to be known to English-speaking readers for another reason as well: she speaks directly to our concern for the freedom of women to realize themselves artistically and intellectually.
Her poetry is surprising in its scope and variety. She handled with ease the intricate verse forms of her day and wrote in a wide range of genres. Many of her lyrics reflect the worldliness and wit of the courtly society she moved in before becoming a nun; some, composed to be sung, offer charming glimpses of the native people, their festivities and colorful diversity. Alan Trueblood has chosen, in consultation with Octavio Paz, a generous selection of Sor Juana’s writings and has provided an introductory overview of her life and work. The short poems, and excerpts from her play The Divine Narcissus , are accompanied by the Spanish texts on facing pages. Her long philosophical poem, First Dream , is translated in its entirety, as is her famous autobiographical letter to the Bishop of Puebla, which is both a self-defense and a vindication of the right of women to cultivate their minds.
The Anthology was conceived as a companion to the English-language edition of Octavio Paz’s magisterial study of Sor Juana. On its own, it will be welcomed as the first representative selection in English of her verse and prose.
Her poetry is surprising in its scope and variety. She handled with ease the intricate verse forms of her day and wrote in a wide range of genres. Many of her lyrics reflect the worldliness and wit of the courtly society she moved in before becoming a nun; some, composed to be sung, offer charming glimpses of the native people, their festivities and colorful diversity. Alan Trueblood has chosen, in consultation with Octavio Paz, a generous selection of Sor Juana’s writings and has provided an introductory overview of her life and work. The short poems, and excerpts from her play The Divine Narcissus , are accompanied by the Spanish texts on facing pages. Her long philosophical poem, First Dream , is translated in its entirety, as is her famous autobiographical letter to the Bishop of Puebla, which is both a self-defense and a vindication of the right of women to cultivate their minds.
The Anthology was conceived as a companion to the English-language edition of Octavio Paz’s magisterial study of Sor Juana. On its own, it will be welcomed as the first representative selection in English of her verse and prose.
264 pages, Paperback
First published September 15, 1988
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563 people want to read
About the author
Juana Inés de la Cruz
264 books322 followersJuana 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.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
February 8, 2019
The poems of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz are riveting. Trueblood's translation captures the spirit of the form while maintaining integrity to the original text. What a poetess we have here to admire.
November 12, 2011
I got this book because I found Sor Juana in a list of great writers of the Western tradition and I had never heard of her, let alone read her. She was Mexican, the illegitimate daughter of a Spanish officer, and showed a precocious interest and ability in learning. She came to the viceregal court in Mexico City and became a favorite. Not being interested in marriage, she became a nun, though she continued to study and write. A book of her poems was published in Europe, to some acclaim. Eventually she renounced writing for more monastic pursuits, and a couple of years later, in 1695, she died of an illness contracted while ministering to the sick.
Alas, the music of her Spanish is inaccessible to me. But as far as I can tell from this translation, her work would attract little attention if she were a man, or even a European. Much of it is effete court poetry, full of pseudo-pastoral conceits and obsequious praise of noblemen. Much of the rest is pretty religious verse, rounded out with an old-fashioned allegorical moral play in which Christ appears improbably in the person of Narcissus. Indeed, she peppers her works with endless classical references that smell of mothballs. She is writing in the late 17th century, the age of Newton and Leibnitz, but her astronomy is Ptolemaic and her philosophy Scholastic. It appears that Mexico City was truly a provincial backwater.
She is perhaps most famous for her "Reply to Sor Philothea," a letter in defense of her interest in learning and writing. Sor Philothea was actually her bishop, who write under a pseudonym to gently suggest that she devote her writing more to sacred subjects. Sor Juana's reply is a fervent and heartfelt defense of her calling to study and letters, and I feel all sympathy with her, blessed as she is with an active and fertile mind but born into a society where lower-class women had few avenues for intellectual self-improvement. It is full of the flowery language expected in a court, with much exchange of fulsome compliments and repeated and pointed assertions of humility. It is verbose--it includes a lengthy explanation that silence means saying nothing. It is liberally sprinkled with Classical and religious quotations, many or most of them misremembered. Still, one can't help feeling the justice of her cause and the reality of her calling. And she justifies her poetry with the unimpeachable example of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who gave us the Magnificat.
Her verse may have been old-fashioned, but those who can appreciate it assure me that it was excellent of its kind, and I am willing to believe it. I do not believe that Sor Juana belongs in the top rank of poets, with Dante and Shakespeare and Dickinson. Her greatest importance is her early appeal for education for women, and her example that some women plainly have the ability to profit from it.
Alas, the music of her Spanish is inaccessible to me. But as far as I can tell from this translation, her work would attract little attention if she were a man, or even a European. Much of it is effete court poetry, full of pseudo-pastoral conceits and obsequious praise of noblemen. Much of the rest is pretty religious verse, rounded out with an old-fashioned allegorical moral play in which Christ appears improbably in the person of Narcissus. Indeed, she peppers her works with endless classical references that smell of mothballs. She is writing in the late 17th century, the age of Newton and Leibnitz, but her astronomy is Ptolemaic and her philosophy Scholastic. It appears that Mexico City was truly a provincial backwater.
She is perhaps most famous for her "Reply to Sor Philothea," a letter in defense of her interest in learning and writing. Sor Philothea was actually her bishop, who write under a pseudonym to gently suggest that she devote her writing more to sacred subjects. Sor Juana's reply is a fervent and heartfelt defense of her calling to study and letters, and I feel all sympathy with her, blessed as she is with an active and fertile mind but born into a society where lower-class women had few avenues for intellectual self-improvement. It is full of the flowery language expected in a court, with much exchange of fulsome compliments and repeated and pointed assertions of humility. It is verbose--it includes a lengthy explanation that silence means saying nothing. It is liberally sprinkled with Classical and religious quotations, many or most of them misremembered. Still, one can't help feeling the justice of her cause and the reality of her calling. And she justifies her poetry with the unimpeachable example of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who gave us the Magnificat.
Her verse may have been old-fashioned, but those who can appreciate it assure me that it was excellent of its kind, and I am willing to believe it. I do not believe that Sor Juana belongs in the top rank of poets, with Dante and Shakespeare and Dickinson. Her greatest importance is her early appeal for education for women, and her example that some women plainly have the ability to profit from it.
August 22, 2023
A wonderful experience! Juana Ines de la Cruz is one of the most important Mexican poets. She was a nun in the 17th century but surprisingly her poetry is secular and mostly about love, a large portion specifically addressed to Countess Maria Luisa de la Laguna who went back to Spain and published Sor Juana’s poetry. I believe they must have been in love with each other.
Sor Juana did not want to marry so she went into the convent so she could continue her interest in books and learning.
Her poetry is gorgeous in Spanish and in English. We are so lucky to have her work so many centuries later. Countless women and their artistic works have been erased. The translation by Alan Trueblood is very well done.
Also included in this volume is her early feminist piece called Reply to Sor Philothea which defends the rights of women to equal access to education.
Sor Juana did not want to marry so she went into the convent so she could continue her interest in books and learning.
Her poetry is gorgeous in Spanish and in English. We are so lucky to have her work so many centuries later. Countless women and their artistic works have been erased. The translation by Alan Trueblood is very well done.
Also included in this volume is her early feminist piece called Reply to Sor Philothea which defends the rights of women to equal access to education.
January 13, 2008
Sor Juana was a 17th-century Mexican nun, who, against much clerical opposition, wrote religious and secular poems and plays. A Sor Juana Anthology contains a selection of her poetic work, and her learned prose reply to a letter of admonishment, criticizing her on the grounds that scholarship and learning not devoted to the worship of Christ, especially by a woman, were unjustified. Sor Juana’s work is highly appealing and is enhanced in this edition by having the Spanish originals and English translations on facing pages. I recommend this book to anyone interested in Mexican, Hispanic, or women’s literature.
February 2, 2010
Sor Juana has a great sense of humor!
She was an intellectual and a feminist. I was expecting her poems to be difficult reading because Sor Juana lived during the 17th century, but really they are delightful, witty, sometimes stinging. Trueblood's translations are illuminating and interesting, and Paz's forward does a good job explaining the circumstances of Sor Juana's life, the choices available to her as a woman in New Spain, and the reasons Paz thinks she made the choices she did.
She was an intellectual and a feminist. I was expecting her poems to be difficult reading because Sor Juana lived during the 17th century, but really they are delightful, witty, sometimes stinging. Trueblood's translations are illuminating and interesting, and Paz's forward does a good job explaining the circumstances of Sor Juana's life, the choices available to her as a woman in New Spain, and the reasons Paz thinks she made the choices she did.
July 29, 2020
The more translations I read of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz’s works, the more I appreciate the art and feeling behind her writings on reflections and reality, desire and knowledge, and the need for and beauty of education. The more translations, the more angles from which we can explore this brilliant mind, the better.
September 23, 2012
I really enjoyed the poems in this collection, but they definitely lose something in translation. I liked this version because the English and Spanish versions were presented side-by-side. Time to move on to a more detailed biography!
March 8, 2015
Read for my Early Modern Women's Writing Class, Spring 2014.
I only read the "Reply to Sor Philothea" and "First Dream." "First Dream" was really, really tough to get through, so I'm glad I was reading it for a class - lots of discussion and context helped. I liked the "Reply" much more.
I only read the "Reply to Sor Philothea" and "First Dream." "First Dream" was really, really tough to get through, so I'm glad I was reading it for a class - lots of discussion and context helped. I liked the "Reply" much more.
August 22, 2021
No hay mucho que decir, su poesía es preciosa. Aquí abajo, tres fragmentos de los poemas de Sor Juana Inés escritos para Lisi (la Virrenina Maria Luisa)
“Pues desde el dichoso día
que vuestra belleza vi,
tal del todo me rendí,
que no me quedó acción mía.
Con lo cual, señora, muestro,
y a decir mi amor se atreve,
que nadie pagaros debe,
que vos honréis lo que es vuestro.
Yo adoro a Lisi, pero no pretendo
que Lisi corresponda mi fineza,
pues si juzgo posible su belleza,
a su decoro y mi aprehensión ofendo”.
En este otro, Sor Juana explica que le pertenece a la Virreina:
“Divina Lisi mía:
Perdona si me atrevo
a llamarte así, cuando
aún de ser tuya el nombre
no merezco.
A esto, no osadía
es llamarte así, puesto
que a ti te sobran rayos,
si en mí pudiera haber
atrevimientos.
Error es de la lengua,
pues lo que dice imperio
del dueño, en el domino,
parezcan posesiones en el siervo.
Mi rey, dice el vasallo;
mi cárcel, dice el preso;
y el más humilde esclavo,
sin agraviarlo, llama suyo al dueño.
Así, cuando yo mía
te llamo, no pretendo
que juzguen que eres mía,
sino sólo que yo ser tuya quiero".
“Y en fin, perdonad por Dios,
señora, que os hable así,
que si yo estuviera en mí,
no estuvierais en mí vos”.
“Pues desde el dichoso día
que vuestra belleza vi,
tal del todo me rendí,
que no me quedó acción mía.
Con lo cual, señora, muestro,
y a decir mi amor se atreve,
que nadie pagaros debe,
que vos honréis lo que es vuestro.
Yo adoro a Lisi, pero no pretendo
que Lisi corresponda mi fineza,
pues si juzgo posible su belleza,
a su decoro y mi aprehensión ofendo”.
En este otro, Sor Juana explica que le pertenece a la Virreina:
“Divina Lisi mía:
Perdona si me atrevo
a llamarte así, cuando
aún de ser tuya el nombre
no merezco.
A esto, no osadía
es llamarte así, puesto
que a ti te sobran rayos,
si en mí pudiera haber
atrevimientos.
Error es de la lengua,
pues lo que dice imperio
del dueño, en el domino,
parezcan posesiones en el siervo.
Mi rey, dice el vasallo;
mi cárcel, dice el preso;
y el más humilde esclavo,
sin agraviarlo, llama suyo al dueño.
Así, cuando yo mía
te llamo, no pretendo
que juzguen que eres mía,
sino sólo que yo ser tuya quiero".
“Y en fin, perdonad por Dios,
señora, que os hable así,
que si yo estuviera en mí,
no estuvierais en mí vos”.
September 7, 2023
one of my favorite people in history, definitely think her work should be taught in schools
November 1, 2017
Simplemente hermosa la forma de escribir de Sor Juana. Sus poemas y sonetos están entre los más perfectos que he leído.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews