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LITR 4231 Early American
Literature Research Posts 2014 (research post assignment) Research Post 1 |
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Ana Harms
26 March 2014
In the mind of Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz
When we read You Men the poem by Sor
Juana Inez de la Cruz, in class and I saw her picture attached to the lecture, I
instantly became curious as to who this person was.
Her face and her posture in the picture was captivating.
And once you get past the beauty, there is something more to her, like
she knows something we don’t know.
I know now what that look is: her intellect. Sor
Juana was beyond her time, and she was brilliant. She was an amazing writer and
she loved writing poetry. She was best known for her beautiful mind. She was
very knowledgeable on just about anything and she would find opportunities for
learning in everything that she did.
In 1651, Sor Juana was born and raised in Mexico (New Spain), during the
Spanish Inquisition, a time where women were not educated in worldly things but
only of God and the Church. But in her
grandfather’s library at three years old, she learned to read and write and
became a very bright woman. Instead of taking the normal route of women in the
1600s of marriage and children, she chose the Church and became a nun.
So why would Sor Juana, a woman from the mid-1600s, choose knowledge over
marriage?
One possible reason she chose learning over marriage she explains in one of her
most famous poems, You Men this poem
is about her thoughts on men and how they treated women. In this poem she goes
on to say how men didn’t respect woman and women were treated as if they were
not smart. She wanted to change the way that women were treated in her time. She
wanted more for the women of her time. She strongly believed in women
empowerment and this poem had me wondering why a woman from the 1600’s in the
middle of the Spanish Inquisition would be so brave as to write about such a
bold topic.
During the Spanish Inquisition, women were not allowed to read and write outside
of church. But that didn’t stop Sor Juana, she taught herself different subjects
like Latin, and when she wasn’t learning it fast enough she would cut her hair
as punishment to herself. She even
tried to convince her mother to let her go to the University as a boy (girls
were not allowed in school), but her mother wouldn’t allow it. So, at the age of
12, she went to live with an aunt in Mexico City and became popular among the
people because of her intelligence. At the age of 20, she had a choice to get
married but she chose to live in the convent and become a nun, as it was the
only way she could continue her education. In the convent she was able to meet
many different people and spend her time writing and learning.
In another famous piece, called La
Respuesta, she shows us a little more of why she chose the life she did.
In this piece she has written a reply to a critic’s opinion on a previous
piece she wrote about an archbishop.
In La Respuesta, she defends
herself and all she has accomplished and briefly explains why she writes.
Some say it’s her best piece of writing because she talks openly about
herself, sort of like a biography.
What I liked most about this piece was that it is very honest, and she explains
why learning and education is so important to her.
In a translated version, I really like
when she says “I don’t study to write or teach but to be less ignorant
(Impson).” This shows what type of
person she was and what she wanted for herself and women. She also had to defend
her position in her religion. Many
people called her writing secular and evil, because her writings weren’t always
about religion. “And if you say I
shouldn’t write poetry because I am a woman, you are saying the evil is in my
being a woman-because there is no evil in poetry" (Impson).
She was always defending her writing to people who didn’t understand.
So why did Sor Juana choose knowledge over marriage? In the
La Respuesta a reply to “Sor
Filotea”, she states that she did all her work simply for the love of learning.
Everything she did was always about learning and studying.
She never married because getting married meant never studying or
writing, and that was who she was and what she lived for.
She is one of the first intelligent women to speak out about women’s
rights. These pieces’ she has
created has and will help us in the past, present and future.
Work Cited:
Royer, Fanchon. The Tenth Muse Sor Juana
Ines de la Cruz. Paterson, N.J: St. Anthony Guild Press, 1952
“You Men” by Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz: On Professor White class website
http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/philosophers/cruz.html
http://bethimpson.wordpress.com/courses/english-214/eng-214-sor-juana-summary/
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