When Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz was a child, she was
believed to be a prodigy. She desperately wanted to read, and used to steal into her
grandfather's library to borrow books. During this time, women were not educated—only
the men. She begged to be allowed to dress as a young man and go to the university in
Mexico City. The fact that she finally succeeded in learning to read was a miracle in
itself in the Mexico of her day.
Sent to Mexico City to live with relatives at age
eight, Sor Juana was invited into the court of the viceroy as an intellectual companion
for his wife.
In this
environment, she was able to write her poetry, and to move throughout the circles of
government and society. Sor Juana was born long before her time: if she married, she
would have no freedom to follow her intellectual pursuits unless
her husband permitted it. The only place where she would be able to
do so was the Church, and so she "entered the convent of St.
Jerome."
Her work (especially her poetry) garnered a great
deal of attention, some positive and some negative, but she was able to quietly enjoy
her life until she publicly criticized the sermon of "a famous Jesuit scholar." There
was a great deal of concern over this woman's temerity to criticize Father Viera's work.
(After all, women were second-class citizens.) A letter from "Sister Filotea" (actually
the bishop of Puebla who was trying to stand up for her) brought about Sor Juana's
famous response which defended her right as a woman to be educated and to express her
intellectual opinions. Her response is entitled, Respuesta de la poetisa a la
muy ilustre Sor Filotea de la Cruz ("reply of the poetess to the illustrious
Sister Filotea de la Cruz"). Even with support from others and her insistence that she
had no desire to challenge the Church's authority or overstep her place in society, she
was chastized by the Church.
Other things were happening
that did not make her position much easier:
Mexico was suffering from both natural and
political problems: rain, flood, famine, pestilence, a total solar eclipse, and riots
that almost ended Spanish
authority.
Eventually, Sor
Juana lost some support. Later she sold off her extensive library (estimated at "four
thousand volumes") for charity. She renewed her vows, writing "a reaffirmation of her
faith...in her own blood." She eventually became ill while nursing other nuns at the
convent who were suffering from an epidemic, and
died.
Finding a literary "platform" in the Church was not
unusual in itself. For many years, no one could read but the nobility or clerics, monks,
etc., within the Roman Catholic Church. It was quite possible to rise through the ranks
of the Church and have authority that equalled that of a king. Within the circles of the
nobility, women were not allowed to attend school. Sor Juana's decision to take her vows
during this era made perfect sense. However, society and the Church could only tolerate
just so much from this forward-thinking woman.
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