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Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: Selected Works
Sor Juana (1651–1695) was a fiery feminist and a woman ahead of her time. Like Simone de Beauvoir, she was very much a public intellectual. Her contemporaries called her "the Tenth Muse" and "the Phoenix of Mexico," names that continue to resonate. An illegitimate child, self-taught intellectual, and court favorite, she rose to the height of fame as a writer in Mexico City during the Spanish Golden Age.
This volume includes Sor Juana's best-known works: "First Dream," her longest poem and the one that showcases her prodigious intellect and range, and "Response of the Poet to the Very Eminent Sor Filotea de la Cruz," her epistolary feminist defense—evocative of Mary Wollstonecraft and Emily Dickinson—of a woman's right to study and to write. Thirty other works—playful ballads, extraordinary sonnets, intimate poems of love, and a selection from an allegorical play with a distinctive New World flavor—are also included.
This volume includes Sor Juana's best-known works: "First Dream," her longest poem and the one that showcases her prodigious intellect and range, and "Response of the Poet to the Very Eminent Sor Filotea de la Cruz," her epistolary feminist defense—evocative of Mary Wollstonecraft and Emily Dickinson—of a woman's right to study and to write. Thirty other works—playful ballads, extraordinary sonnets, intimate poems of love, and a selection from an allegorical play with a distinctive New World flavor—are also included.
216 pages, Paperback
Published November 30, 2015
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623 people want to read
About the author
Juana Inés de la Cruz
264 books324 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 - 30 of 46 reviews
June 30, 2015
It begins as the spawning of a universe, with a bang. & what it unleashes, we witness in marvel. It is quite a blessing for me to finally be privy to these words. I have long been in love with the myth of the instrument but to finally hear the notes it bestows makes my insides melt with the withers of beauty. She escapes not the lure of female flesh. The subject of many of her poems. Indeed she blooms in a desert, surrounded by misogyny. With keen intellect her thorns protrude warding off those who seek to do her quest for wisdom harm. I miss these wise beings though I’ve never met them. She houses profound love, desire, longing, despair. She is clever. She is strong. She is powerful. She is beauty. A well-read woman. An autodidact. She uses much pagan mythology for a catholic nun but what is to be expected of those of the 1600’s so close in proximity to the renaissance. She exhibits with grand knowledge the teachings of the Aristotelian & other scholastics. A privilege it would seem among women of the time. Erudite & yet never lacking passion. She knows the scientific terminology of the time. Those dealing at the atomic level, human physiology, anatomy, astrology. I kept wondering why I had such a fondness. It is because we share a bottomless curiosity. A will to ingest all information available to a single human being. It seems so deeply woven in that not to know pains her. Tugs vehemently at her cords. A painful note strummed over & over when reminded of that which is unknown, knowing so much exists. Mythology is so much a part of her writing. She displays an affinity for Paganism but perhaps it is en vogue subject matter for the time, what evokes intellectualism & academia. How often she refuses to be silenced. Refuses to stop learning. Refuses to denounce her strong nature. To quote Camus, The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion. As I read & her character begin to form I fall in love with her bravery, her quirkiness, her neuroticism, her eruditeness, & her precocity. She is charismatic, humble & yet so very rebellious. She bears all the ailments of intelligence, neurosis, sarcasm, humor, eccentricity, obsessive compulsive tendencies, being vocally opinionated on EVERYTHING. Truly a woman after my own heart & yet I get the feeling that no matter how many male hearts she’s captured, none could capture hers. One does not capture the light of heavenly bodies. You are merely able to sit back & enjoy in a deep admiration & perhaps we should just be content with that alone. My yearning does not quell. It is as our fondness for curiosity.
April 25, 2019
"Discursive reason is a sword quite effective at both ends: with the point of the blade it kills; the pommel on the hilt protects ... Knowing how to create subtle, specious reasons is not knowledge; true knowledge consists only in choosing salutary virtue."
Like I suspect a lot of Anglo readers, I came into this knowing more about Sor Juana's life than her work. (And six months ago, I didn't even know that.) There is a paucity of her work translated in English, and this fairly slim compendium contains little tasters of her poetry, a brief part of a play, as well as the more famous longer poem dealing with the nature of existence, and her prose defence of her scholarship. It is widely eclectic as a collection, which is no criticism of either the editor or translator, who are clearly trying to give a sense of the breadth of Sor Juana's accomplishments.
And they are considerable. Every inch of this work shows off: classical and Christian allusions comprise, rather than pepper, many of the texts. Her style is bold and unapologetic - the false modesty required of Seventeenth-Century intellectuals is weaponised in her pen, ensuring no blunting of her point - and arguments, puns and references come as fast as if she had marshalled them to march in tune.
This is the kind of poetry I find frustrating to read in translation. Sor Juana is one of those rare writers for whom the sound, meaning, allusion and written form of words work together. You get a sense of this through Edith Grossman's translation, but it doesn't *feel* quite right.
One of the reasons I wanted to pick this up was to broaden my reading, which has little Latinx culture in it now. I can be dense at times, and I hadn't really thought through how different 17C Mexican cultural barriers would be to modern Latinx culture. So the very Europeaness of Sor Juana's writing, despite her fluency in Nahuatl. Perhaps for this reason, the short preface from a farce was the aspect of her writing I wanted more of: a perspective on colonisation, Madrid and Mexico, universals and specifics, that was intriguing in its workpersonship.
The Dream is an enormous achievement - a summation of contemporary European learning in fields as diverse as physiology; philosophy; physics and ancient history. The poem encapsulated a longing for knowledge, an acceptance of limitation, and a surprising amount of pedagogy.
I suspect that Sor Juana, as staunch an advocate for the right of women to learn as could be imagined, would still be frustrated if that, rather than for her poetic and scholarly achievements, was how she was remembered. I enjoyed this slim volume, but still hope it will be superseded by longer works in English of her various mastered genres.
2019 Reading Challenge #50. A book set in an abbey, cloister, monastery, vicarage, or convent
Like I suspect a lot of Anglo readers, I came into this knowing more about Sor Juana's life than her work. (And six months ago, I didn't even know that.) There is a paucity of her work translated in English, and this fairly slim compendium contains little tasters of her poetry, a brief part of a play, as well as the more famous longer poem dealing with the nature of existence, and her prose defence of her scholarship. It is widely eclectic as a collection, which is no criticism of either the editor or translator, who are clearly trying to give a sense of the breadth of Sor Juana's accomplishments.
And they are considerable. Every inch of this work shows off: classical and Christian allusions comprise, rather than pepper, many of the texts. Her style is bold and unapologetic - the false modesty required of Seventeenth-Century intellectuals is weaponised in her pen, ensuring no blunting of her point - and arguments, puns and references come as fast as if she had marshalled them to march in tune.
This is the kind of poetry I find frustrating to read in translation. Sor Juana is one of those rare writers for whom the sound, meaning, allusion and written form of words work together. You get a sense of this through Edith Grossman's translation, but it doesn't *feel* quite right.
One of the reasons I wanted to pick this up was to broaden my reading, which has little Latinx culture in it now. I can be dense at times, and I hadn't really thought through how different 17C Mexican cultural barriers would be to modern Latinx culture. So the very Europeaness of Sor Juana's writing, despite her fluency in Nahuatl. Perhaps for this reason, the short preface from a farce was the aspect of her writing I wanted more of: a perspective on colonisation, Madrid and Mexico, universals and specifics, that was intriguing in its workpersonship.
The Dream is an enormous achievement - a summation of contemporary European learning in fields as diverse as physiology; philosophy; physics and ancient history. The poem encapsulated a longing for knowledge, an acceptance of limitation, and a surprising amount of pedagogy.
I suspect that Sor Juana, as staunch an advocate for the right of women to learn as could be imagined, would still be frustrated if that, rather than for her poetic and scholarly achievements, was how she was remembered. I enjoyed this slim volume, but still hope it will be superseded by longer works in English of her various mastered genres.
2019 Reading Challenge #50. A book set in an abbey, cloister, monastery, vicarage, or convent
February 26, 2023
The two stars are there cause she wrote of lesbian attraction and a couple of beautiful verses on other topics, while being a nun, and cause she (sort of) questioned the primacy of men in life and the church.
the three stars missing are cause I gagged more times than i can count while reading this. having heard of her story i did not think that her writings would be, sooooo, *christian*... like she says things like "of course i am base and ignorant [being a woman]" cause the church tells her so
and she also describes spanish colonisation of mexico and the prosyletism of the natives to christianity *AS A GOOD THING*
she wrote about loving god so much i was actually unable to proper read some of the pages, i had to just skim through the more intense *cult vibes* passages.
so so so so so so difficult to read.
it's giving cult member who is trying to break free but still praises the "lord" and thinks she's unworthy of breathing cause shs's a dirty woman
truly jarring
would absolutely never read again
the three stars missing are cause I gagged more times than i can count while reading this. having heard of her story i did not think that her writings would be, sooooo, *christian*... like she says things like "of course i am base and ignorant [being a woman]" cause the church tells her so
and she also describes spanish colonisation of mexico and the prosyletism of the natives to christianity *AS A GOOD THING*
she wrote about loving god so much i was actually unable to proper read some of the pages, i had to just skim through the more intense *cult vibes* passages.
so so so so so so difficult to read.
it's giving cult member who is trying to break free but still praises the "lord" and thinks she's unworthy of breathing cause shs's a dirty woman
truly jarring
would absolutely never read again
August 10, 2018
Too long had I waited to seek out the writings of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, the 17th-century Mexican nun I've admired for five years based on her scant biography alone, so you can imagine my delight when I finally got my hands on this collection of her works translated into English. Sor Juana was intelligent and humble, a beacon of inspiration for women in a repressive, male supremacist society that forbade women from dreams and ambitions beyond marriage to a man, motherhood, and religious devotion. I first heard about Sor Juana in a university course I took on Latin American history. It was only later when I did my own research on her that I discovered she was a lesbian - a fact not mentioned in any of the initial sources I read. Her work has inspired me to improve my Spanish because I am longing to read it in the original Spanish. I don't think I can fully appreciate being blessed to read the words of her heart's pining for the beautiful women who were a primary subject of her poems without grasping the spirit of the language in which they were originally written. But I sense that Edith Grossman did her very best.
These are snippets from Redondilla 91.
From her letter to the Bishop of Puebla, a response to his encouraging her to read more Bible and less science and math and history. It was so hard to choose my favourite quotes because there are so many good ones.
These are snippets from Redondilla 91.
Oh how, in your beautiful sun,Sor Juana had a lot to say about women's rights, which was incredibly progressive for her time. From Redondilla 92, in which she criticises men for their misogyny and double standards.
my ardent love set ablaze,
enflamed and fed by your brilliance,
it forgot about the dangers.
Forgive me if it was boldness
to dare approach your pure ardor,
for there is no holy place safe
from blameworthy lapses of thought.
[...]
And although loving your beauty
is a crime without a pardon,
let me be punished for the fault
rather than for indifference.
Do not, then, rigorous lady,
wish the one who declared her love
to be in truth unfortunate
when she had been joyful in jest.
If you condemn my irreverence,
condemn your power as well,
for if my obedience is wrong,
your command was not a just one.
If my intent is culpable,
my affection is ever damned,
because loving you is a crime
for which I shall never atone.
O foolish men who accuse(Damn. Men don't change.)
women with little cause,
not seeing you are the reason
for the very thing you blame:
for if with unequaled longing
you solicit their disdain,
why wish them to behave well
when you urge them on to evil?
You contend with their resistance,
then say gravely that the conquest
arose from their licentiousness
and not your extreme diligence.
The audacity of your mad
belief resembles that of the
child who devises a monster
and then afterward fears it.
With foolish presumption you wish
to find the woman you seek,
for your mistress, a Thais,
and Lucretia for your wife.
Whose caprice can be stranger than
the man who ignores good counsel,
clouds the looking glass himself,
then complains it is not clear.
You occupy the same place
whether favored or disdained,
complaining if women are cruel
and mocking them if they love.
You think highly of no woman,
no matter how modest: if she
rejects you she is ungrateful,
and if she accepts, unchaste.
From her letter to the Bishop of Puebla, a response to his encouraging her to read more Bible and less science and math and history. It was so hard to choose my favourite quotes because there are so many good ones.
In this way I proceeded, always directing the steps of my study to the summit of sacred theology, as I have said; and to reach it, I thought it necessary to ascend by the steps of human sciences and arts, because how is one to understand the style of the queen of sciences without knowing that of the handmaidens? How without logic, was I to know the general and particular methods used in the writing of Holy Scripture? How, without rhetoric, would I understand its figures, tropes, and locutions? ... How without arithmetic, understand so many computations of years, days, months, hours, and weeks as mysterious as those in Daniel, and others for whose deciphering one must know the natures, concordances, and properties of numbers? How, without geometry, can one measure the Holy Ark of the Covenant and the holy city of Jerusalem, whose mysterious measurements form a cube with all its dimensions, a marvelous proportional distribution of all its parts? How, without architecture, fathom the great temple of Solomon, where God Himself was the artificer, conceiving the proportion and design, and the wise king merely the overseer who executed it...? How, without great knowledge of the rules and parts that constitute history, can the historical books be understood? Those recapitulations in which what happened earlier is often placed later in the narration and seems to have occurred afterward? How, without great familiarity of both kinds of law, can one apprehend the legal books?As you can see, most of this review is just Sor Juana's quotes, whose intellect and wonder speak for themselves. May her soul rest in peace.
June 1, 2016
4,5 stars. I wrote about this book here: https://theblankgarden.wordpress.com/...
June 1, 2024
"... and so it is necessary at least to say that those things that cannot be said cannot be said, so it is understood that being silent does not mean having nothing to say, but that the great deal there is to say cannot be said in words."
I started this collection knowing absolutely nothing about Sor Juana besides what my ultra awesome! english teacher told my class before she lent me this book someone gifted and wrote her a heartfelt message in. I'm starting this review very tired and not knowing anything besides what this collection made me feel and that I love a good oxford comma and I still hate the Spanish.
I originally thought of Sor Juana as an instrument of early Spanish occupation of Mexico, and cringed every time I read Nueva Hispaña or anything about the colonization and massacre, both physical and spiritual, of millions of people whose lives laid the foundation for the state of Mexico to be what it is today.
The reality of what Mexico is has always been cemented as something so tragic in my mind, leading me to think of myself and my family and the millions of other mestizos out there as products of violence, of force, of atrocities committed from one set of DNA to the other until they're indistinguishable within ourselves. At some point during the 4 months it took me to trudge through this, I began to understand a little bit more about the landscape of violence and religion which my ancestors, of each and every kind, lived trapped within. Reading these works, it becomes impossible not to think about the lives and minds colonization and forced conversion have ruined, transformed, controlled, repressed, killed, and impacted for millennia to come. It's hard to not see the hands of Catholicism reaching out from the plains of history and continuing to choke billions of people in a never ending cycle of shame, fear, and guilt. It seems like the suffering, found inside each and every one of us, will never stop being felt.
As I read these works with this in mind, I grew to learn more about Sor Juana herself (with help from my family, major Sor Juana fan grandma, and Wikipedia), as well as the issues she faced in her time. Every page managed to draw another parallel from me to her and her to me until I got to the end and literally felt like I was trapped within all the strings that connected us unless I managed to write them down somewhere.
On November 12th, 1648, less than 2 hours away from my own place of birth in la Ciudad de México, Sor Juana was born a mistake; an illegitimate female prodigy in a time and place not meant for someone like her. Despite being fully Spanish, she learned Nahuatl in her youth, something my own grandmother did herself a few years ago in her effort to connect to roots she will never fully know. Even though she was mostly self taught, Sor Juana had the privilege of being highly educated in her time, having access to much literature and remaining relatively safe in her upbringing, upholding her position as a Spanish nun in a time of enslavement, rape, genocide, torture, famine, disease, and endless violence all around her.
Of course, she faced challenges. Endless attacks from religious men + women, church officials, the general public and what seemed like basically the entire world. Who she was, what she was, always mattered more than her work, her life, or anything else. She had no right to learn and write and consume and express and love and fear and live as she did. She had no place in the world and nowhere to go to remain unchained from motherhood, labor, etc. besides the church, and no place to go in the church but through it. She had only herself.
Maybe it's self centered, but it's hard to read about her desperation to go to school, to consume knowledge voraciously, to create and write and truly really live, only to be blocked by the limitations of her sex, the restraint of her inherent place in the world, without imagining myself. The way she begs her mother to dress her as a boy so she can go to school makes me think of the time before my very first days of preschool, so excited and desperate to learn I would cry and squeal and plead for my mother to find one good school that would take me. The way she talks about cutting her hair constantly in an effort to force herself to learn even more, even faster, reminds me of all the spontaneous late nights I have had with a pair of scissors and a bathroom mirror. The way she writes about her friends, her care for women, her disdain for men and marriage and love, circling the truth but never really coming to it,
All of it feeds into a fear I've often had about myself, someone who has never fit Catholic expectations of anything, someone who lives to learn and learns to live, someone who could not have survived (at least intact) at any point in history before the last 30 years without either committing suicide or being nothing but a shell. It's impossible to imagine the kind of life someone like me would have had to live in a time like Sor Juana's, but in reading between the lines, understanding that what she does not say -what she cannot say- out of fear of punishment, banishment from the Church, and God knows what else, speaks to her life as much as what she was able to say.
An educated Spanish woman, born and raised in colonial Mexico, thought to be queer, always doubted, always alone, never fully allowed to speak, afflicted with a voracious need to learn, to understand, to interpret, to comprehend and realize life and all the horrible and beautiful things in it in her own way,
Forced to live the only life she could.
I wonder if in reading this translation of her incredible works, because of my lack of ability to read in Spanish (especially distinguished and super old Spanish), I'm adding another barrier between us that the world hasn't already.
Born 357 years, 5 months, 21 days, and approximately 88 km apart, I thank Sor Juana for her work.
May people like us find a place in this world forever,
No more left unsaid.
I started this collection knowing absolutely nothing about Sor Juana besides what my ultra awesome! english teacher told my class before she lent me this book someone gifted and wrote her a heartfelt message in. I'm starting this review very tired and not knowing anything besides what this collection made me feel and that I love a good oxford comma and I still hate the Spanish.
I originally thought of Sor Juana as an instrument of early Spanish occupation of Mexico, and cringed every time I read Nueva Hispaña or anything about the colonization and massacre, both physical and spiritual, of millions of people whose lives laid the foundation for the state of Mexico to be what it is today.
The reality of what Mexico is has always been cemented as something so tragic in my mind, leading me to think of myself and my family and the millions of other mestizos out there as products of violence, of force, of atrocities committed from one set of DNA to the other until they're indistinguishable within ourselves. At some point during the 4 months it took me to trudge through this, I began to understand a little bit more about the landscape of violence and religion which my ancestors, of each and every kind, lived trapped within. Reading these works, it becomes impossible not to think about the lives and minds colonization and forced conversion have ruined, transformed, controlled, repressed, killed, and impacted for millennia to come. It's hard to not see the hands of Catholicism reaching out from the plains of history and continuing to choke billions of people in a never ending cycle of shame, fear, and guilt. It seems like the suffering, found inside each and every one of us, will never stop being felt.
As I read these works with this in mind, I grew to learn more about Sor Juana herself (with help from my family, major Sor Juana fan grandma, and Wikipedia), as well as the issues she faced in her time. Every page managed to draw another parallel from me to her and her to me until I got to the end and literally felt like I was trapped within all the strings that connected us unless I managed to write them down somewhere.
On November 12th, 1648, less than 2 hours away from my own place of birth in la Ciudad de México, Sor Juana was born a mistake; an illegitimate female prodigy in a time and place not meant for someone like her. Despite being fully Spanish, she learned Nahuatl in her youth, something my own grandmother did herself a few years ago in her effort to connect to roots she will never fully know. Even though she was mostly self taught, Sor Juana had the privilege of being highly educated in her time, having access to much literature and remaining relatively safe in her upbringing, upholding her position as a Spanish nun in a time of enslavement, rape, genocide, torture, famine, disease, and endless violence all around her.
Of course, she faced challenges. Endless attacks from religious men + women, church officials, the general public and what seemed like basically the entire world. Who she was, what she was, always mattered more than her work, her life, or anything else. She had no right to learn and write and consume and express and love and fear and live as she did. She had no place in the world and nowhere to go to remain unchained from motherhood, labor, etc. besides the church, and no place to go in the church but through it. She had only herself.
Maybe it's self centered, but it's hard to read about her desperation to go to school, to consume knowledge voraciously, to create and write and truly really live, only to be blocked by the limitations of her sex, the restraint of her inherent place in the world, without imagining myself. The way she begs her mother to dress her as a boy so she can go to school makes me think of the time before my very first days of preschool, so excited and desperate to learn I would cry and squeal and plead for my mother to find one good school that would take me. The way she talks about cutting her hair constantly in an effort to force herself to learn even more, even faster, reminds me of all the spontaneous late nights I have had with a pair of scissors and a bathroom mirror. The way she writes about her friends, her care for women, her disdain for men and marriage and love, circling the truth but never really coming to it,
All of it feeds into a fear I've often had about myself, someone who has never fit Catholic expectations of anything, someone who lives to learn and learns to live, someone who could not have survived (at least intact) at any point in history before the last 30 years without either committing suicide or being nothing but a shell. It's impossible to imagine the kind of life someone like me would have had to live in a time like Sor Juana's, but in reading between the lines, understanding that what she does not say -what she cannot say- out of fear of punishment, banishment from the Church, and God knows what else, speaks to her life as much as what she was able to say.
An educated Spanish woman, born and raised in colonial Mexico, thought to be queer, always doubted, always alone, never fully allowed to speak, afflicted with a voracious need to learn, to understand, to interpret, to comprehend and realize life and all the horrible and beautiful things in it in her own way,
Forced to live the only life she could.
I wonder if in reading this translation of her incredible works, because of my lack of ability to read in Spanish (especially distinguished and super old Spanish), I'm adding another barrier between us that the world hasn't already.
Born 357 years, 5 months, 21 days, and approximately 88 km apart, I thank Sor Juana for her work.
May people like us find a place in this world forever,
No more left unsaid.
July 5, 2023
I got this book for the famous (in theatre history) "Response of the Poet", and I was duly impressed by this text, but I'm confused about the selection process for these selected works. I love the way the selection of ballads written to noblewomen compares perfectly with the same exact sentiments and words in her pastoral love poetry. This is clever. I love, too, the selection of witty epigrams. They're playful and clever. But what is the loa to The Divine Narcissus doing here? And I found the "First Dream" to be baroquely impenetrable. Mostly I'm just wondering why these items are all grouped together. A colonialist playlet, an apologia for women's writing, love poetry, letters of dedication. I don't get it. And there's almost zero introductory material, so we aren't really told how these works fit with the Obras Completas as a whole. In sum, I am happy to have a translation of the "Response of the Poet", but I am puzzled by this collection.
April 7, 2025
She's funny and I liked her own work, but my version was so filled with editor's notes I found myself not caring
April 25, 2018
This is a book of selected poems and other writings by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz who was a nun in the 1690´s New Spain (now Mexico). I´m not a poem enthusiast so why did I decide to read this book? I had just watched the Netflix show on Sor Juana´s life and wanted to know what her writing was like.
Sor Juana was a nun and confidant of the wives of the viceroy to New Spain. She had written many poems and plays, mostly about love. Without her permission, her writings were published in Spain and she became famous. The Church didn´t approve of her writings. Eventually, she was given a choice: excommunication or stop all writings. She chose the latter.
I was curious to her writings. Was it mainly love poems? Or, did she write on religious issues? From the selected poems in this book, it appears that her poetry was all about love. There was a play about the Church indoctrinating the indigenous people about God which was interesting.
Then there was the letter written to Sor Juana from Sor Filotea. This was interesting. This letter is admonishing Sor Juana for her writings. It was not written by a nun though. In fact, this letter was written by the Bishop of Puebla who used the named Sor Filotea as a means to persuade Sor Juana to change her ways. If she was to write, she should write theology not love poems. It didn´t work. Sor Juana´s response letter to Sor Filotea is also included in this work. It´s a very long and wordy letter some of which I scanned instead of read in detail. Basically, her response said:
1) She was not worthy to write theology. She would not want to write something that would upset the Church.
2) In order to understand the Bible, one must study and learn the arts and sciences, astrology, musicology and other humanities.
3) Women naturally study sciences. Where? In the kitchen by learning which ingredients to use and how much.
4) There have been women throughout the ages who held in high regard for their wisdom. These women include many of the women in the Bible such as Deborah, Abigail, Rahab. Other women are mentioned as well such as Roman women and Spanish Queens. The Church even holds these women in high regard. Why then can´t she and other women study and learn and read and write? I thought it odd that she mentions that women should not preach (teach) the word but may study and teach privately. I think she mentioned this so as not to upset the Church.
Another reason I wanted to read this book is that Mexico holds her in high esteem. She is pictured on the 200 peso note.
I didn´t enjoy the poems but the remainder of her works were interesting.
Sor Juana was a nun and confidant of the wives of the viceroy to New Spain. She had written many poems and plays, mostly about love. Without her permission, her writings were published in Spain and she became famous. The Church didn´t approve of her writings. Eventually, she was given a choice: excommunication or stop all writings. She chose the latter.
I was curious to her writings. Was it mainly love poems? Or, did she write on religious issues? From the selected poems in this book, it appears that her poetry was all about love. There was a play about the Church indoctrinating the indigenous people about God which was interesting.
Then there was the letter written to Sor Juana from Sor Filotea. This was interesting. This letter is admonishing Sor Juana for her writings. It was not written by a nun though. In fact, this letter was written by the Bishop of Puebla who used the named Sor Filotea as a means to persuade Sor Juana to change her ways. If she was to write, she should write theology not love poems. It didn´t work. Sor Juana´s response letter to Sor Filotea is also included in this work. It´s a very long and wordy letter some of which I scanned instead of read in detail. Basically, her response said:
1) She was not worthy to write theology. She would not want to write something that would upset the Church.
2) In order to understand the Bible, one must study and learn the arts and sciences, astrology, musicology and other humanities.
3) Women naturally study sciences. Where? In the kitchen by learning which ingredients to use and how much.
4) There have been women throughout the ages who held in high regard for their wisdom. These women include many of the women in the Bible such as Deborah, Abigail, Rahab. Other women are mentioned as well such as Roman women and Spanish Queens. The Church even holds these women in high regard. Why then can´t she and other women study and learn and read and write? I thought it odd that she mentions that women should not preach (teach) the word but may study and teach privately. I think she mentioned this so as not to upset the Church.
Another reason I wanted to read this book is that Mexico holds her in high esteem. She is pictured on the 200 peso note.
I didn´t enjoy the poems but the remainder of her works were interesting.
February 13, 2018
I found this collection to be a mixed bag. The ballads and décimas did not have the lyrical flow or emotional impact that I was expecting, whether due to the poet or the translation, I am unsure. (I have liked Grossman’s previous translations.) The sonnets, on the other hand, were extraordinary. I have since begun reading another collection of Sor Juana’s poetry that contains only sonnets, and I am equally captivated. I can only conclude that I prefer Sor Juana’s sonnets to her other verse forms.
Her life is just as fascinating as her writing, which is why I was so disappointed by the lack of biographical detail in the introduction. I am new to reading Sor Juana, so I was hoping for more context in that regard. I have had to seek it in other editions. As with Grossman’s other books, this one is short on footnotes or much academic or critical evaluation.
On the plus side, the final third of the book is the entire letter from “Sor Filotea” (actually the Bishop of Puebla) and Sor Juana’s reply, which is worth reading alone for her defense of women having the freedom to read, write, and study at their leisure. The only downside is there isn’t much context at all beyond a footnote. Again, I have had to get these details elsewhere.
Perhaps my favorite section of the book was the prologue to the Divine Narcissus. But again, we are given no other information or context (either biographical or textual). I have already tracked down a collection of Sor Juana’s plays from my library for this purpose.
For all these reasons, I’m not sure if this is the best selection of Sor Juana’s writing. It’s a place to begin, but only like dipping a toe in the water. I imagine that those who have already read Sor Juana’s work would only be interested in this as a new translation of a few of her key writings.
Her life is just as fascinating as her writing, which is why I was so disappointed by the lack of biographical detail in the introduction. I am new to reading Sor Juana, so I was hoping for more context in that regard. I have had to seek it in other editions. As with Grossman’s other books, this one is short on footnotes or much academic or critical evaluation.
On the plus side, the final third of the book is the entire letter from “Sor Filotea” (actually the Bishop of Puebla) and Sor Juana’s reply, which is worth reading alone for her defense of women having the freedom to read, write, and study at their leisure. The only downside is there isn’t much context at all beyond a footnote. Again, I have had to get these details elsewhere.
Perhaps my favorite section of the book was the prologue to the Divine Narcissus. But again, we are given no other information or context (either biographical or textual). I have already tracked down a collection of Sor Juana’s plays from my library for this purpose.
For all these reasons, I’m not sure if this is the best selection of Sor Juana’s writing. It’s a place to begin, but only like dipping a toe in the water. I imagine that those who have already read Sor Juana’s work would only be interested in this as a new translation of a few of her key writings.
July 8, 2021
I was initially drawn to the works of Sor Juana by watching a short documentary on how she came to be such a notable Mexican figure - and I was glad to see that this story was not omitted from her selected works. Her poems are richly philosophical and progressive for the baroque period. This is highlighted by Rendondilla 92 - criticising men that blame women for the very thing that men are responsible for creating. I would alone give her poetry 5 stars for it eloquently used classical and biblical references to put across progressive and reflective points of view. Additionally, “Divine Narcissus” demonstrated a more empathetic view from Sor Juana that, although she was a practicing catholic nun, explored the beliefs of native Americans and Occidental compared to catholic conquistadors.
The letters for me would be ranked about 3 stars purely because of the density of biblical references. The classical references are very accessible and succumb to strong arguments and opinions - yet I felt as though the biblical referencing was too complex and frequent for me to enjoy it. Therefore averaging between the poetry and letters, I would rate 4 stars.
The letters for me would be ranked about 3 stars purely because of the density of biblical references. The classical references are very accessible and succumb to strong arguments and opinions - yet I felt as though the biblical referencing was too complex and frequent for me to enjoy it. Therefore averaging between the poetry and letters, I would rate 4 stars.
January 7, 2021
I have read most of Sor Juana’s writings in the original Spanish, but my Spanish is imperfect, hers is baroque, and I was typically reading with the basic goal of making it through with a correct understanding. In this translation, Edith Grossman not only makes some of the Mexican nun’s wittiest and most transgressive writings accessible to English readers. Incredibly, she makes the experience of reading them enjoyable. I hope this book stays in print for a long time and is read by many people.
October 4, 2019
This was an interesting collection of poems, a play, and several letters. The last letter was hard to read because she had to fight so hard for the idea that women and religious women should be allowed to write. Everyone should be able to write. Reading a book for long ago can be challenging because it can be hard to see the prejudices of the time and to see how many of them still exist today.
December 6, 2016
The only thing keeping me from giving this less than five stars is the choice of selections of her work. I adore her romantic poetry. The second half of the book is a an allegorical play and letters that, while further demonstrating her brilliant intellect, don't move me the way much of her poetry does.
January 11, 2016
I've enjoyed having this on my bedside table and it will remain close by. Reading a poem and closing my eyes, thinking about it while I go to sleep. The only thing I miss is the original language version, not included. I like to compare the translation.
May 25, 2018
Perhaps not the best introductory collection to her works. The intro itself fails to mention that Juana is queer. The translations are fine, I guess, but I find them poorly contextualized. Would like a volume that has more extensive footnotes.
March 15, 2016
3 1/2 stars
January 3, 2019
Beautiful. Poignant.
June 6, 2019
A beautiful translation, I would have appreciated it if they included a more scholarly placement of Sor Juana Ines De La Cruz’s life into context, but the poems were beautiful.
August 18, 2019
Siempre es un placer revisar la producción poética de la grandiosa Sor Juana. Totalmente una mujer adelantada a su tiempo.
January 16, 2024
This is a short collection, translated by Edith Grossman, of both poetry and prose by Sister Juana Inés de la Cruz. De la Cruz was a 17th century nun who reached a level of fame before she was forbidden to write poetry and her library - allegedly one of the largest in private hands - was given up. She was stitched up by a Spanish bishop who I won't name here. Mainly because he deserves nothing but contempt and I hope there is a warm corner of Hell for him to meditate on his stupidity.
The collections consists of a number of short poems in different styles, a long poem - The Dream - which is possibly her best known work and her long prose response defending her reading and learning and that of women in general.
The poetry is interesting and one in particular, which berates men who chase women and then accuse the same women of unchastity. It doesn't have a title but The Hypocrisy of Men might be suitable. It rings true even now and Grossman's translation helps make it feel modern. De la Cruz would not have much time for Andrew Tate and his stupid incel followers.
The Dream is a majestic long poem that I am going to have to go back a read again. And again.
But the best thing in her is that long letter in response to the Spanish bishop (who actually wrote his initial attack under a pseudonym being a coward as well as a misogynistic arsehole.) I'd say read this collection for that alone. It is perfectly written in a way that hides the sharpness of its prose behind a cloud of humility. It might as well be called 'if I am unworthy to learn and write it isn't because I am a woman, it is because I am a human.' It's barbs are mostly subtle, but barbs there are. No wonder the 17th century Catholic church sought to silence her.
And this is as much as anything a collection that hides silences. Grossman's introduction talks about that. This might be a collection of de la Cruz's words but how much did we lose when a bishop - almost certainly jealous of her erudition and breadth of knowledge - decided she should be silenced. But at least de la Cruz got some small voice. There's a lot of silences out there that we will never know.
The collections consists of a number of short poems in different styles, a long poem - The Dream - which is possibly her best known work and her long prose response defending her reading and learning and that of women in general.
The poetry is interesting and one in particular, which berates men who chase women and then accuse the same women of unchastity. It doesn't have a title but The Hypocrisy of Men might be suitable. It rings true even now and Grossman's translation helps make it feel modern. De la Cruz would not have much time for Andrew Tate and his stupid incel followers.
The Dream is a majestic long poem that I am going to have to go back a read again. And again.
But the best thing in her is that long letter in response to the Spanish bishop (who actually wrote his initial attack under a pseudonym being a coward as well as a misogynistic arsehole.) I'd say read this collection for that alone. It is perfectly written in a way that hides the sharpness of its prose behind a cloud of humility. It might as well be called 'if I am unworthy to learn and write it isn't because I am a woman, it is because I am a human.' It's barbs are mostly subtle, but barbs there are. No wonder the 17th century Catholic church sought to silence her.
And this is as much as anything a collection that hides silences. Grossman's introduction talks about that. This might be a collection of de la Cruz's words but how much did we lose when a bishop - almost certainly jealous of her erudition and breadth of knowledge - decided she should be silenced. But at least de la Cruz got some small voice. There's a lot of silences out there that we will never know.
July 24, 2022
I read bits and pieces of Sor Juana Inés when I accidentally bumped into her(thanks to Internet). She is one of the first feminist of America, an illegitimate child of a Spanish officer and born in Mexico City. She has a brilliant mind, self taught in many studies such as Latin, Nahautl, philosophy, composed poems and many more. All these was possible because she was able to access books through her grandfather and his library, something girls are forbidden back when the patriarchal society enforced such law. Not to forget her fierce mother Doña Isabel influence on her is where she gets her fierce and confidence from. Because of she stood out in the society and being a woman, even favored by many, she lost her privilege and suffered. I am so happy to have this book in my hands and read more about her works alongside appreciating the translator's journey in the making of this book. It's unfortunate that I do not understand nor speak Spanish, so much of the style and meaning might be vague for a non-speaking reader. This book comprises of her works which were strictly monitored and I could see that she was resilient in her words despite it.
April 10, 2024
I will scream to the rooftops in the Spanish Golden Age of how much I love this woman. Her perseverance as a woman and a nun in Mexico City, allowing her faith to validate her purpose and passion for writing, is a beautiful and raw reality. She was, for lack of better words, a badass woman, who in my opinion was in a closet made of glass with how she wrote about other women. Her poems, plays, and letters are something to savor and devour all at once and then repeat. I am not much of a poetry reader, but her poems spoke to me, as I believe they would easily speak to others, and I already started researching posters of her portrait to put on my wall as a commemoration to this talented woman lost to history.
March 28, 2025
i think i may just be too stupid for this book. the sonnets were okay, nothing spectacular, in my view; "first dream" was so obscure that i couldn't really parse it; the play i thought was a colonizing force of its own and really i fail to see how others portray sor juana as an "anticolonialist writer"—she may have been anti-materialist, but i think the play firmly cements her as an agent of religious colonization, even if it is a form of syncretism.
April 2, 2025
AWESOME
this proto-feminist, Aristotlean, philosopher-poet, nun, social worker is insanely smart, shockingly funny, and deliberately conversing with the tradition—converting (and as a true poet) composing to her own needs
(it is genuinely baffling how much of EVERYTHING she has not only read, but has mastery over)
this proto-feminist, Aristotlean, philosopher-poet, nun, social worker is insanely smart, shockingly funny, and deliberately conversing with the tradition—converting (and as a true poet) composing to her own needs
(it is genuinely baffling how much of EVERYTHING she has not only read, but has mastery over)
February 21, 2023
I didn't read this straight through. I jumped around to different poems at different times. I don't usually enjoy poetry, but I really enjoyed hers. Beautiful way with words.
October 15, 2024
Sieviete ar gudru prātu un modernu domāšanu, priekš tā laika.
Sarežģīta valoda.
Par daudz Dieva.
Patika visas Reinas piezīmītes.
Sarežģīta valoda.
Par daudz Dieva.
Patika visas Reinas piezīmītes.
February 16, 2025
Honors read. Loved reading her works and learning about her in lecture.
February 18, 2025
Baddie feminist icon in the 17th century writing feminist poetry so like duh 5 stars
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