The Routledge Research Companion to the Works of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

Called by her contemporaries the'Tenth Muse,'Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648–1695) has continued to stir both popular and scholarly imaginations. While generations of Mexican schoolchildren have memorized her satirical verses, only since the 1970s has her writing received consistent scholarly attention., focused on complexities of female authorship in the political, religious, and intellectual context of colonial New Spain. This volume examines those areas of scholarship that illuminate her work, including her status as an iconic figure in Latin American and Baroque letters, popular culture in Mexico and the United States, and feminism. By addressing the multiple frameworks through which to read her work, this research guide serves as a useful resource for scholars and students of the Baroque in Europe and Latin America, colonial Novohispanic religious institutions, and women's and gender studies. The chapters are distributed across four sections that deal broadly with different aspects of Sor Juana's life and work: institutional contexts (political, economic, religious, intellectual, and legal); reception history; literary genres; and directions for future research. Each section is designed to provide the reader with a clear understanding of the current state of the research on those topics and the academic debates within each field. Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents List of Figures Introduction: Making and unmaking myth in Sor Juana studies Historical trajectory of critical trends Mythmaking and scholarship Mythmaking in art and popular culture Contextualizing the life Situating the work Note A note about conventions Part I Contexts 1 The empire and Mexico City: Religious, political, and social institutions of a transatlantic enterprise Notes 2 The Creole intellectual project: Creating the baroque archive Representation of lo mexicano in Sor Juana America vs. Europe: Sor Juana’s transatlantic criollismo Baroque in the Americas Notes 3 The gendering of knowledge in New Spain: Enclosure, women’s education, and writing Notes Part II Reception history 4 Seventeenth-century dialogues: Transatlantic readings of Sor Juana Notes 5 Readings from the seventeeth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries: Hagiography and nationalism Notes 6 Twentieth-century readings: Schons, Pfandl, and Paz Dorothy Schons Ludwig Pfandl Octavio Paz Notes 7 Passionate advocate: Sor Juana, feminisms, and sapphic loves Introduction Sor Juana’s feminisms and ours That old dispute (“querelle” feminism) Biography and “thanatography” Thematic approaches Discursive analyses Genre Our lady of wisdom (spiritual-matriarchal feminism) “Illustrious lady, my lady” (courtly feminism) “Transiting to the sumptuous gardens of Venus” (sapphist feminism, Sor Juana’s lesbianism) Notes 8 Translations of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: Ideology and interpretation Early portraits of Sor Juana: translation history of the Americas Contemporary translators recreate the Baroque Feminist interpretations of Sor Juana: a gender-neutral soul Translating baroque genres beyond lyric: devotional exercises, enigmas, and villancicos Translating the dramatic works for page and stage: performance as translation A laboratory of texts: Sor Juana translation futures Notes 9 “My original, a woman”: Copies, origins, and Sor Juana’s iconic portraits Notes 10 Contemporary Mexican Sor Juanas: Artistic, popular, and scholarly Note Part III Interpretations of and debates about the works A: Prose works 11 The afterlife of a polemic: Conflicts and discoveries regarding Sor Juana’s letters The debates today Notes 12 Challenging theological authority: The Carta atenagórica / Crisis sobre un sermón and the Respuesta a Sor Filotea Notes B: Verse 13 Sor Juana’s love poetry: A woman’s voice in a man’s genre Approaches to a sonnet: “Detente, sombra de mi bien esquivo” A diversity of verse forms Editions and editorial interventions The biographical fallacy The poetics of passionate friendship Future directions Notes 14 Sor Juana’s Romances: Fame, contemplation, and celebration Notes 15 Philosophical sonnets: Through a baroque lens Philology and the Baroque Expanding philosophy: feminist approaches Baroque vision and painting Future directions Notes 16 Primero Sueño: Heresy and knowledge Preliminary considerations Sor Juana’s imitation of Góngora Scientific, philosophical, and emblematic models Feminism Theology Primero Sueño in the twentieth and twenty-first century Conclusion Notes C: Theater and public art 17 Writing for the public eye: Theatrical production, church spectacle, and state-sponsored art (the Neptuno Alegórico) Early reception of Sor Juana’s arch The recovery of Sor Juana’s works and figure in the early twentieth century Semiotic, rhetorical, and sociological approaches to the Neptune Octavio Paz and the traps of biographical interpretation Feminist approaches to Sor Juana’s arch A new edition of the Allegorical Neptune A philological approach Classical and baroque sources of the Neptune Other semiotic, ideological, and performative approaches Comparative studies of Sor Juana’s Allegorical Neptune and Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora’s Teatro de virtudes políticas Future directions Notes 18 Sor Juana as lyricist and musical theorist Sor Juana, musician and composer Sor Juana, musical theorist Future directions Notes 19 Loa to El Divino Narciso: The costs of critiquing the conquest Western archive/Mexican archive? Pro-Christian/pro-Aztec? Conquest Sor Juana’s violence On the Baroque and baroque sacrifices Notes 20 The Autos: Theology on stage Notes 21 Los empeños de una casa: Staging gender Notes 22 La Segunda Celestina, A Recently Discovered Play, and Amor Es Más Laberinto The search for La segunda Celestina The Spanish critics The Mexican critics A critical bridge between Spanish and Spanish American critics The play, Amor es más laberinto Notes Part IV Future directions for research 23 Understudied aspects of canonical works and potential approaches to little-studied works Notes Contributors Works cited Index