Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

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...

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