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
“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
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
Intellectual companion of Sor. Juana
The name and fame of “Mother Juana Inés de la Cruz will only end with the world.”
End
Screen illustrations