Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
[Born Nov. 12, 1651, San Miguel Nepantla, Viceroyalty of New Spain [now in Mexico] died April 17, 1695, Mexico City, poet, scholar, and nun, an outstanding lyric poet of Mexico's colonial period.
An intellectual prodigy, at eight she already composed poetry. She begged her parents to disguise her as a boy and send her to the University of Mexico but had to be content with reading her grandfather's books. At nine she went to live in Mexico City, where she studied Latin, mastering the language in 20 lessons. The fame of her learning reached the Spanish viceroy, who invited her to court, where her wit, beauty, and magnetic personality won her great popularity. In an oral examination arranged by the viceroy, Juana Inés (then 17) astonished 40 professors with her knowledge.
See also "The Reply," another of her writings. You'll find several more of Sor Juana's poems at this Peter Bakewell's Emory University Latin American History website. Click on any of the following titles that appear on the prior link under "Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz."
Better Death
A Much-Needed Eyewash
Philosophical Satire
She resolves the Question
Satiric Reproach
She Attempts to Minimize the Praise
She Laments her Fortune
In order to dedicate her life to learning she rejected the idea of marriage and entered the convent of San Jerónimo on Feb. 24, 1669. There she assembled a library of about 4,000 volumes, experimented in the sciences, and wrote poems and religious and secular plays. Attempts were made to curb her scholastic activities. Her daring criticism of a sermon of the famed Brazilian Jesuit António Vieyra prompted a letter from the Bishop of Puebla, under the pseudonym of Sor Filotea, admonishing her to concentrate on religious studies.
In her “Reply to Sister Philotea,” a long letter and a revealing autobiographical fragment, written March 1, 1691, she defended her desire for broad knowledge at a time when women were expected to shun intellectual pursuits. She became famous for a poem “Foolish Men Who Accuse [Women]”. Two years later, however, she gave up all contact with the world, signed a confession with her own blood, sold her books, scientific and musical instruments, distributed the money to the poor, and devoted her time exclusively to religious duties. She died the victim of an epidemic, while nursing her sister nuns.
The three volumes of her works were printed in Spain: the first, “Flood from the Muses' Springs,” 1689, appeared in Madrid; the second, Segundo volumen de las obras de Sóror Juana Inés de la Cruz (1692; “Second Volume of the Works of Sister Juana Inés de la Cruz”), in Seville; and the third, Fama y obras pósthumas de Fénix de México y Dézima Musa (1700; “Fame and Posthumous Works of the Mexican Phoenix and Tenth Muse”), in Madrid. Several editions appeared during the 18th century. Although the stylistic affectations of the Baroque Spanish poet Góngora invade some of her work, most of her lyrics have a simple beauty and direct emotional appeal.
Three of her poems appear below. The third justifies her designation as the first feminist of the Americas.]
1. Disillusionment
Disillusionment,
this is the bitter end,
the end of illusion,
this proves you're rightly called
the end of illusion.
You've made me lose all
yet no, losing all
is not paying too dear
for being undeceived.
No more will you envy
the allurements of love,
for one undeceived
has no risk left to run.
It's some consolation
To be expecting none:
there's relief to be found
in seeking on cure.
In loss itself
I find assuagement:
having lost treasure,
I've nothing to fear.
Having nothing to lose
Brings peace of mind:
one traveling without funds
need not fear thieves.
Liberty itself
for me is no boon:
if I hold it such,
it will soon be my bane.
No more worries for me
Over boons so uncertain:
I will own my very soul
as if it were not mine.
2. What Interest Have You, World, in Persecuting Me?
What interest have you. World, in persecuting me?
Wherein do I offend you, when all I want
Is to give beauty to my mind
And not my mind to beautiful things?
I do not care for good or treasures;
And so am always more content
To endow my thoughts with riches
Rather than riches with my thoughts.
And I esteem not looks, which age
Takes away in civil stealth,
Nor am I impressed by wealth,
Holding that in truth 'tis better
To expend the vanities of life
Than to expend one's life in vanities.
3. You Men
Silly, you men-so very adept at wrongly faulting womankind,
not seeing you're alone to blame for faults you plant in woman's mind.
After you've won by urgent plea the right to tarnish her good name,
you still expect her to behave--you, that coaxed her into shame.
You batter her resistance down and then, all righteousness, proclaim
that feminine frivolity, not your persistence, is to blame.
When it comes to bravely posturing, your witlessness must take the prize:
you're the child that makes a bogeyman, and then recoils in fear and cries.
Presumptuous beyond belief, you'd have the woman you pursue be
Thais when you're conning her, Lucretia once she falls to you.
For plain default of common sense, could any action be so queer
as oneself to cloud the mirror, then complain that it's not clear?
Whether you're favored or disdained, nothing can leave you satisfied.
You whimper if you're turned away, you sneer if you've been gratified.
With you, no woman can hope to score; whichever way, she's bound to lose;
spurning you, she's ungrateful-succumbing, you call her lewd.
Your folly is always the same: you apply a single rule
to the one you accuse of looseness and the one you brand as cruel.
What happy mean could there be for the woman who catches your eye,
If, unresponsive, she offends, yet whose complaisance you decry?
Still whether it's torment or anger—and both ways you've yourselves to blame--
God bless the woman who won't have you no matter how loud you complain.
It's your persistent entreaties that change her from timid to bold
Having made her thereby naughty you would have her good as gold.
So where does the greater guilt lie for a passion that should not be:
with the man who pleads out of baseness or the woman debased by his plea?'
Or which is more to be blamed--though both will have cause for chagrin:
the woman who sins for money or the man who pays money to sin?
So why are you men all so stunned at the thought you're all guilty alike?
Either like them for what you've made them, or make of them what you can like.
If you'd give up pursuing them, you'd discover without a doubt,
you've a stronger case to make against those who seek you out.
I well know what powerful arms you wield in pressing for evil:
your arrogance is allied with the world, the flesh, and the devil!