Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
“It turned out that the hair grew quickly and I learned slowly. As a result, I cut of the hair in punishment for my heads ignorance, for it didn’t seem right to me that head so naked of knowledge should be dressed up with hair. For knowledge is a more desirable ornament.”-From the Reply to the very Illustrious Sor Filotea de la Cruz, written in 1691.
Sor Juana, came across this name when I was scrolling through my YouTube
there was this video by name The Worst Nun watched it and done little research
on Sor Juana's work. I’m writing this post in honour of Sor Juana.
Juana was born in 12 November 1648 San Miguel
Nepantla near maxico city. She was illegitimate child of a Spanish captain,
Pedro Manuel de Asbaje and Isabel Ramirez. Juana was baptized in 2 December
1652 and registered as “a daughter of church” because she was an illegitimate child. She
spent her early years living with her mother on her maternal grandfather's estate, Panoaya.
Sor Juana was voracious reader in her early
years hiding in hancienda chapel to read her grandfather’s books from adjoining
library, in that time it was forbidden to girls.
At the age of three she used to follow an
older sister to school and convinced a teacher to show her how to read.
Juana learn how to read and write Latin. By age of five she could account. Juana taught
herself all she could.
She composed her first poem when she was
eight years old. By adolescences, she had comprehensively studied Greek logic,
and was teaching to young children at age thirteen. She also learned Nahualt, and Aztec language spoken in central Mexico, and wrote some short poems in that
language.
In 1664, at the age of 16, Juana was sent to
live with her aunt in Mexico City. She asked her mother’s permission to
disguise herself as a male student so that she could enter the university there
but was not given permission and had continue to tutor herself. In teenage she
used to cut her hair every time she made a mistake in Latin.
She presented to court of Viceroy Marquis de
Mancera, where she admitted to service of Viceroys wife as
lady-in-writing. The
viceroy, the Marquis de Mancera, wishing to test the learning and intelligence
of the 17-year-old, invited several theologians, jurists, philosophers, and
poets to a meeting, during which she had to answer many questions unprepared
and explain several difficult points on various scientific and literary
subjects. The manner in which she acquitted herself astonished all present and
greatly increased her reputation. Her literary accomplishments garnered her
fame throughout New Spain. She was much admired in the viceregal court, and she received several
proposals of marriage, which she declined.
At 20, In 1667, she entered the Monastery of St. Joseph, a community
of the Discalced Carmelite nuns, as a postulant, where she remained
but a few months. Later, in 1669, she entered the monastery of the Hieronymite
nuns, which had more relaxed rules. She chose to become a nun so that she could
study as she wished since she wanted to have no fixed occupation which might
curtail her freedom to study.
In the
convent and perhaps earlier, Sor Juana became intimate friends with fellow
savant, Don Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, was one of the great
intellectuals born in the Spanish viceroyalty of New Span.In 1680 he had
praised her “There is no pen that can rise to the eminence that hers o’ertops…
(the fame of) Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz will only end with
world.
She
stayed cloistered in the Convent of Santa Paula of the Hieronymite in Mexico
City from 1669 until her death, and there she studied, wrote, and collected a
large library of books.
In 1690,
Sor Juana critiqued a famous sermon given by Antonio de Vieira. The Bishop of
Mexico, pretending to be impressed by her, asked Sor Juana to put her critique
in writing. Without her knowledge, the Bishop published the critique under the
pen name “Sor Filotea de la Cruz” and included a letter condemning her
intellectualism as a woman.
In
response to her critics, Sor Juana wrote a letter, Respuesta a Sor Filotea
de la Cruz (Reply to Sister Philotea) In it, Sor Juana defended the
intellectual rights of women and the rights of women and the rights of women to
have access to education, and condemned the Church for helping to keep women
uneducated. Sor Juana explained the ways in which she believed education
could be used to serve God and recounted own life long struggle to peruse
education in society that did not believe women should be learned.
Despite
her eloquent defense, the Church forced her to relinquish her literary pursuits
and even her library.When she sold her library of 4000 volumes, and musical
instruments, she wrote a document that renounced of her learning, which ended
with “Yo, la Peor de Todas” (I, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, the worst in the all women)
signed in her own blood.
Of over
one hundred unpublished works, only few of her writings have survived, which
are known as the Complete Work. In 1695, a plague hit the convent. On
April 17, after tending to fellow sisters, Juana died from disease around the
age of forty-four.
In 1990,
a film was made about Sor Juana’s life, “I, the Worst of All,”
which takes its title from an apology Sor Juana was forced to write to the
Church.
I will
add some of Sor Juana's work to my blog...
Thank you
for visiting!!