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Sor Juana: Or, the Traps of Faith
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Mexico's leading poet, essayist, and cultural critic writes of a Mexican poet of another time and another world, the world of seventeenth-century New Spain. His subject is Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, the most striking figure in all of Spanish-American colonial literature and one of the great poets of her age.
Her life reads like a novel. A spirited and precocious girl, one of six illegitimate children, is sent to live with relatives in the capital city. She becomes known for her beauty, wit, and amazing erudition, and is taken into the court as the Vicereine's protegee. For five years she enjoys the pleasures of life at court--then abruptly, at twenty, enters a convent for life. Yet, no recluse, she transforms the convent locutory into a literary and intellectual salon; she amasses an impressive library and collects scientific instruments, reads insatiably, composes poems, and corresponds with literati in Spain. To the consternation of the prelates of the Church, she persists in circulating her poems, redolent more of the court than the cloister. Her plays are performed, volumes of her poetry are published abroad, and her genius begins to be recognized throughout the Hispanic world. Suddenly she surrenders her books, forswears all literary pursuits, and signs in blood a renunciation of secular learning. The rest is silence. She dies two years later, at forty-six.
Octavio Paz has long been intrigued by the enigmas of Sor Juana's personality and career. Why did she become a nun? How could she renounce her lifelong passion for writing and learning? Such questions can be answered only in the context of the world in which she lived. Paz gives a masterly portrayal of the life and culture of New Spain and the political and ideological forces at work in that autocratic, theocratic, male-dominated society, in which the subjugation of women was absolute.
Just as Paz illuminates Sor Juana's life by placing it in its historical setting, so he situates her work in relation to the traditions that nurtured it. With critical authority he singles out the qualities that distinguish her work and mark her uniqueness as a poet. To Paz her writings, like her life, epitomize the struggle of the individual, and in particular the individual woman, for creative fulfillment and self-expression.
Her life reads like a novel. A spirited and precocious girl, one of six illegitimate children, is sent to live with relatives in the capital city. She becomes known for her beauty, wit, and amazing erudition, and is taken into the court as the Vicereine's protegee. For five years she enjoys the pleasures of life at court--then abruptly, at twenty, enters a convent for life. Yet, no recluse, she transforms the convent locutory into a literary and intellectual salon; she amasses an impressive library and collects scientific instruments, reads insatiably, composes poems, and corresponds with literati in Spain. To the consternation of the prelates of the Church, she persists in circulating her poems, redolent more of the court than the cloister. Her plays are performed, volumes of her poetry are published abroad, and her genius begins to be recognized throughout the Hispanic world. Suddenly she surrenders her books, forswears all literary pursuits, and signs in blood a renunciation of secular learning. The rest is silence. She dies two years later, at forty-six.
Octavio Paz has long been intrigued by the enigmas of Sor Juana's personality and career. Why did she become a nun? How could she renounce her lifelong passion for writing and learning? Such questions can be answered only in the context of the world in which she lived. Paz gives a masterly portrayal of the life and culture of New Spain and the political and ideological forces at work in that autocratic, theocratic, male-dominated society, in which the subjugation of women was absolute.
Just as Paz illuminates Sor Juana's life by placing it in its historical setting, so he situates her work in relation to the traditions that nurtured it. With critical authority he singles out the qualities that distinguish her work and mark her uniqueness as a poet. To Paz her writings, like her life, epitomize the struggle of the individual, and in particular the individual woman, for creative fulfillment and self-expression.
547 pages, Paperback
First published November 1,1982
This edition
- Format
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547 pages, Paperback
- Published
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January 2, 1990 by Belknap Press
- ISBN
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9780674821064
- ASIN
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0674821068
- Language
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English
About the author
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Octavio Paz Lozano was a Mexican writer, poet, and diplomat, and the winner of the 1982 Neustadt International Prize for Literature and the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature ("for impassioned writing with wide horizons, characterized by sensuous intelligence and humanistic integrity.")
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The tributes to Paz - ten years after his death - have now made me remember the reading of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz or the traps of faith. I read the book, a gift from Martha Ordaz, in 1997. Martha, always attentive, invited me to breakfast at the Samborns of the Tiles. After breakfast, she said to me: "I want to give you a book, choose." I saw Paz's book, which I wanted to read, and she gave it to me. It was a most opportune gift. At that time, I had the desire and need for such a reading.
The day after the gift, I went on vacation with my children, first to Ixtapa and then to Tequisquiapan. During those days, I was reading Paz's book. I would get up early, run along the beach or the horse paths of Tequisquiapan. On my return, I would take a bath, have breakfast, and start reading. During each morning's run, I would remember the previous day's reading and see the transcendence of what Paz had written, beyond the biography of Sor Juana, as a philosophical essay where its author was developing universal concepts.
I read the book with a yellow marker in my hand and a pen. With the marker, I would highlight the phrases that caught my attention for some reason. With the pen, I sometimes commented in the margin of the book on some of Paz's ideas or refuted them, such as his opinion on the science of Sigüenza and Góngora. Mariana, who saw me writing in the book, asked me: "Dad, why are you crossing out the book?" "Because it's a conversation with the author," I replied. At one point, I left the book next to the beach chair where I was reading and went into the pool. When I came out, I saw written on the last page of the book, with the same pen I was using, the phrase: "Writing in books is dialoguing with the authors." It was Mariana's handwriting.
The book, with this phrase from my daughter, with all its underlinings and my comments, is in my bedroom, on one of the side bookshelves. Sometimes when I'm tired, I take the book, open it at random, and read some of the underlined phrases. I relax and then close it again.
To share in some way that dear reading, I copy here some of the phrases I underlined and some comments. I hope these phrases, taken out of the context of the book, which speak of politics, creativity, literature, love, and the solitude of the artist, make sense on their own. These are all themes that Paz touched on very closely, without a doubt, and to which the outstanding figure of Sor Juana gave literary cause. I hope you find them interesting:
- "Pluralism, patrimonialism, and balance of forces: no viceroy of New Spain had the power that the president of Mexico has." P. 41
- "The door through which the divinities go out is the door of entry of other divinities." P. 52
- The paranomasia: "The Englishman with fresh flasks / drunk with his drool, drink / and make a show of gluttony / for with him it's a trick." P. 83
- "The world of books is a world of the chosen." P. 117
- "Knowledge is a transgression committed by a solitary hero who will later be punished." I noted: Paz thinking of himself. P. 124
- "Although originated in the body and indissolubly linked to it, the essence of love is spiritual." P. 137
- "The theme of glory in defeat." I noted: León Felipe in the Canto a mí mismo. P. 160
- "Calm and mediocre, as good governments should be, according to Chuang Tseu." P. 189
- "Marqués is a Celtic word that means prefect of the knights." P. 229
- "The unequivocal sign of all decadences is the loss of a national project." P. 247
- "Ficino invented the expression platonic love and was the first to formulate in philosophical and psychological terms this variety of love." P. 279
- "Poetry achieves the most difficult thing, to be intelligent and passionate." I noted: It also applies to people. P. 301
- "The desired body becomes a ghost, the ghost incarnates in an untouchable presence." I noted: How strange! P. 303
- "Ingenuity, made up of intelligence and sensitivity, is the faculty that discovers the secret relationships between things and ideas and that hits on the unique form that expresses them." P. 369
- "The obstacle is not her femininity but being the soul imprisoned in the body." P. 497
- "Bruno rejoiced in the idea of an infinite universe and in that idea there is an echo of Plato: everything that is, even the bad, is good. Over and over again it is repeated: there are no differences, everything is the center and everything is the circumference." I noted: Borges: Homero y Argos. P. 502
- "Rhetorical passion, in love with itself." P. 515
- "The lord who has rained so abundantly positive benefits in the natural on V.md" I noted: Interesting use of a defective verb. P. 519
- "If humility is often a mask of pride, what can be said of chastity?" I noted P and R. P. 530
- "His charity was despotic, his humility pride, and his chastity a mental debauchery" (He refers to the portrait that Lezamis makes of Archbishop Aguiar y Seijas) P. 532
- "Distinction always brings punishments." I noted: The Conspiracy of the Fools. Kennedy. P. 545
- "The pride that insensibly transforms into rebellion." P. 555
- "The imagination is the faculty of discovering in the similar the unique and different: the great limitation - I was going to write: the sin - of spirits like Nuéz de Miranda is precisely the lack of imagination. That is also their great strength." I noted: The strength is actually the lack of imagination of others. P. 591
The day after the gift, I went on vacation with my children, first to Ixtapa and then to Tequisquiapan. During those days, I was reading Paz's book. I would get up early, run along the beach or the horse paths of Tequisquiapan. On my return, I would take a bath, have breakfast, and start reading. During each morning's run, I would remember the previous day's reading and see the transcendence of what Paz had written, beyond the biography of Sor Juana, as a philosophical essay where its author was developing universal concepts.
I read the book with a yellow marker in my hand and a pen. With the marker, I would highlight the phrases that caught my attention for some reason. With the pen, I sometimes commented in the margin of the book on some of Paz's ideas or refuted them, such as his opinion on the science of Sigüenza and Góngora. Mariana, who saw me writing in the book, asked me: "Dad, why are you crossing out the book?" "Because it's a conversation with the author," I replied. At one point, I left the book next to the beach chair where I was reading and went into the pool. When I came out, I saw written on the last page of the book, with the same pen I was using, the phrase: "Writing in books is dialoguing with the authors." It was Mariana's handwriting.
The book, with this phrase from my daughter, with all its underlinings and my comments, is in my bedroom, on one of the side bookshelves. Sometimes when I'm tired, I take the book, open it at random, and read some of the underlined phrases. I relax and then close it again.
To share in some way that dear reading, I copy here some of the phrases I underlined and some comments. I hope these phrases, taken out of the context of the book, which speak of politics, creativity, literature, love, and the solitude of the artist, make sense on their own. These are all themes that Paz touched on very closely, without a doubt, and to which the outstanding figure of Sor Juana gave literary cause. I hope you find them interesting:
- "Pluralism, patrimonialism, and balance of forces: no viceroy of New Spain had the power that the president of Mexico has." P. 41
- "The door through which the divinities go out is the door of entry of other divinities." P. 52
- The paranomasia: "The Englishman with fresh flasks / drunk with his drool, drink / and make a show of gluttony / for with him it's a trick." P. 83
- "The world of books is a world of the chosen." P. 117
- "Knowledge is a transgression committed by a solitary hero who will later be punished." I noted: Paz thinking of himself. P. 124
- "Although originated in the body and indissolubly linked to it, the essence of love is spiritual." P. 137
- "The theme of glory in defeat." I noted: León Felipe in the Canto a mí mismo. P. 160
- "Calm and mediocre, as good governments should be, according to Chuang Tseu." P. 189
- "Marqués is a Celtic word that means prefect of the knights." P. 229
- "The unequivocal sign of all decadences is the loss of a national project." P. 247
- "Ficino invented the expression platonic love and was the first to formulate in philosophical and psychological terms this variety of love." P. 279
- "Poetry achieves the most difficult thing, to be intelligent and passionate." I noted: It also applies to people. P. 301
- "The desired body becomes a ghost, the ghost incarnates in an untouchable presence." I noted: How strange! P. 303
- "Ingenuity, made up of intelligence and sensitivity, is the faculty that discovers the secret relationships between things and ideas and that hits on the unique form that expresses them." P. 369
- "The obstacle is not her femininity but being the soul imprisoned in the body." P. 497
- "Bruno rejoiced in the idea of an infinite universe and in that idea there is an echo of Plato: everything that is, even the bad, is good. Over and over again it is repeated: there are no differences, everything is the center and everything is the circumference." I noted: Borges: Homero y Argos. P. 502
- "Rhetorical passion, in love with itself." P. 515
- "The lord who has rained so abundantly positive benefits in the natural on V.md" I noted: Interesting use of a defective verb. P. 519
- "If humility is often a mask of pride, what can be said of chastity?" I noted P and R. P. 530
- "His charity was despotic, his humility pride, and his chastity a mental debauchery" (He refers to the portrait that Lezamis makes of Archbishop Aguiar y Seijas) P. 532
- "Distinction always brings punishments." I noted: The Conspiracy of the Fools. Kennedy. P. 545
- "The pride that insensibly transforms into rebellion." P. 555
- "The imagination is the faculty of discovering in the similar the unique and different: the great limitation - I was going to write: the sin - of spirits like Nuéz de Miranda is precisely the lack of imagination. That is also their great strength." I noted: The strength is actually the lack of imagination of others. P. 591
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A very good essay about the life of Sor Juana. I feel that rather than just an introduction to the life of the Mexican poetess, it is a critical work on her life based on an interpretation of her works in the context of her time.
Sor Juana was a remarkable figure in Mexican history. Her life was filled with challenges and achievements. Through this essay, we get a deeper understanding of her as a person and as an artist.
The author delves into the various aspects of Sor Juana's life, including her upbringing, her education, and her literary works. By analyzing her works in the context of the time in which she lived, we can see how she was influenced by the social, political, and cultural forces of her era.
This critical work on Sor Juana's life is not only informative but also thought-provoking. It makes us question our own assumptions about the past and about the role of women in society. Overall, it is a great piece of writing that offers a unique perspective on the life and works of Sor Juana.
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In 1998, in response to Sor Juana, this thought-provoking piece was written. Imagine having such an intense longing to learn and understand, being fully aware of the great good it can bestow upon humanity and religion. Yet, at the same time, feeling a profound sense of guilt for simply picking up a book to engage with it. This is the reality that Sor Juana faced throughout her entire lifetime. No wonder she passed away with a guilty conscience and the belief that she was the "worst in the world." I am inclined to say that it is such a waste. However, upon further reflection, I tend to believe that if learning had not been forbidden, perhaps she might not have had such a powerful temptation to pursue it. What a horrible paradox this is! Our perception seems to be the only dividing line between a chore and a privilege. It makes one wonder about the countless opportunities for growth and knowledge that are lost due to such restrictions and the internal turmoil that individuals like Sor Juana must endure.
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Sor Juana is always a favorite. My undergraduate research is about her. As I started to read a great deal about her life and work, suddenly when reading Octavio Paz, I felt that - despite his precious prose and the infinite love he has for the tenth muse that is very evident - the construction of her as a woman who always inhabited a fluctuation between the canon and subalternity is not very well portrayed. I think Paz made a series of decisions that effectively give more character and definition to the identity of Sor Juana and her position towards the Church, but not always those decisions left me satisfied as a reader. Sometimes I felt that they were inventing a beautiful story of Sor Juana for me. In general, it seems like a good idea to me, but I think that as writers and researchers, it is important to give space for doubts and possibilities in the reading, because I feel that Paz takes a position on several topics that we will never be able to resolve due to the lack of existence of documents that prove certain notions about the author. Moreover, I believe that there could be other interpretations and perspectives that might offer a more comprehensive and accurate understanding of Sor Juana's complex persona and her contributions. It is essential to approach the study of historical figures with an open mind and a willingness to explore different angles, rather than relying solely on one particular view. This way, we can do justice to the richness and diversity of their lives and works.
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The biography of my favorite poetess, in Spanish, written by an incomparable and irreplaceable legend: Octavio Paz. If I could, I would give it 20 stars. I have only read it once, when I just bought it, and I am looking forward to the day when I can devour it again. Octavio Paz is a renowned Mexican writer and poet. His works are filled with profound insights and beautiful language. This biography of my favorite poetess is no exception. It offers a detailed and intimate look into her life, her works, and her creative process. Although I have only read it once, I was deeply impressed by the vivid descriptions and the engaging narrative. I can't wait to read it again and discover more about this amazing poetess through the eyes of Octavio Paz.
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I read this for the class I am TAing. To be honest, it is kind of awful. But who am I kidding? In fact, it is really really awful! The content seems to lack coherence and organization. The ideas are not presented clearly, and it is difficult to follow the author's train of thought. Moreover, the writing style is rather plain and uninteresting. There are no vivid descriptions or engaging examples to capture the reader's attention. As a TA, I hope to see better-quality work from the students. This piece definitely needs a lot of improvement in terms of both content and writing skills. I will have to provide some detailed feedback to the students to help them understand where they went wrong and how they can improve. Hopefully, with my guidance, they will be able to produce better-written and more engaging papers in the future.
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A magnificent study on Juana Inés Ramírez or sor Juana Inés de la Cruz has been conducted. It is very well-documented and, in my opinion, quite objective in its hypotheses regarding the life and work of the Mexican Juana Inés.
The study provides in-depth insights into various aspects of her life, including her upbringing, education, and the social and cultural context in which she lived. The author has carefully analyzed her works, such as her poetry, plays, and philosophical treatises, to understand her思想 and creative process.
At the end of the study, in an appendix dated 1983 and also written by Octavio Paz, he introduces and comments on a letter of Sor Juana to her ex-confessor, Antonio Núñez de Miranda. This letter is a significant example of sor Juana's struggle to claim her rights as a person in the face of the ecclesiastical power. It shows her courage and determination to stand up for herself and her beliefs.
Overall, this study is a valuable contribution to the understanding of Juana Inés Ramírez/sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and her place in Mexican history and literature.
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