Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

Abstract

Arguably the most important poet of the colonial period in Latin America, and perhaps of any time, Mexican poet and playwright Sor Juana Inés de La Cruz (b. 1648–d. 1695) has a number of claims to fame. She is arguably the most important poet of the colonial period in Latin America and among the first to be read in Europe. She is also an influential proto-feminist whose ideological vision defined generations. Her life is divided into three more or less symmetrical parts: her out-of-wedlock birth, education as a criolla, an individual of Spanish descent born in Latin America, in what is today Mexico City, and early manifestations of poetic talent; her life at the viceroyalty court, particularly her relationship with the Condesa de Paredes; and her decision to become a nun or spend her life in the convent, at which time her local and international fame challenged the male ecclesiastical hierarchy in New Spain, prompting her confessor and other authorities to silence her. Her most important works are her philosophical poem Primero sueño (First Dream, 1692), her comedia Los empeños de una casa (Pawn of a house, first performed in 1683) and Amor es más laberinto (Love is but a labyrinth, 1689), her loas or autos sacramentales—religious one-acts—including El divino Narciso (The divine Narcissus, 1689), her “Carta atenagórica” (Athenean letter, 1690) in which she debates the work of Portuguese theologian Antonio Vieira, her proto-feminist “Respuesta a Sor Filotea” (Response to Sor Filotea, published in 1700) where she responds to her confessor’s command to give up her writing, and, mostly, an assortment of sonnets and other poems, including “Hombres necios” (Stubborn men). Fluent in Latin and also active as a writer in Nahuatl, Sor Juana’s oeuvre is relatively compact: it includes poetry and theater and her autobiographical and philosophical letters. A substantial amount was published in her lifetime. After her death, there were hagiographies and, especially in the early 20th century, foundational scholarly studies. Still, she was the property of a small cadre of followers until she breached into the larger public realm and elicited enormous critical attention after Octavio Paz, Mexico’s recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature, released his years-in-the-making biography in 1982. Since then a slew of fresh, reinvigorated research has opened up new vistas on Sor Juana. Her correspondence with her confessor, the Bishop of Puebla, has been found, changing the established academic opinion that he obstructed her intellectual development. Correspondence with other colonial poets, a possible collaboration in a comedia, and other findings have inspired sorjuanistas in international forums. Sor Juana has also become a popular icon not only in Mexican culture but across the Hispanic world, especially among Latinos in the United States. Her image appears in portraits and on Mexico’s 200-peso bill; there are several biographies; and her story has been the subject of operas, movies, TV mini-series, novels, plays, and poetry collections; and her politics have inspired feminists around the world. This bibliography highlights the most important critical editions of her work, in Mexico and outside. It lists canonical scholarly book-length contributions. It catalogues translations into English and her impact among Chicanas in the United States. And it features creative works based on her life and politics. This bibliography isn’t exhaustive. It showcases Sor Juana’s most significant contributions and her reverberations in history. It opens with significant critical editions, moves to attributed works and other references, features important biographies, concentrates on selected studies principally in book form, acknowledges previous bibliographies, and showcases her presence in films, operas, theater, and in literary works. It concludes with a section on Sor Juana in the United States. Important sorjuanistas are identified with biographical dates and relevant contextual information.