She even asked her mother's permission to disguise herself as a male student so that she could enter the university there, without success. In 1664, at the age of 16, Inés was sent to live in Mexico City. She also learned the Aztec language of Nahuatl and wrote some short poems in that language. By adolescence, Inés had mastered Greek logic, and at age thirteen she was teaching Latin to young children. At age eight, she composed a poem on the Eucharist. By the age of five, she reportedly could do accounts. By the age of three, she had learned how to read and write Latin. Statue of Sor Juana Inés in Madrid, Spain.ĭuring her childhood, Inés often hid in the hacienda chapel to read her grandfather's books from the adjoining library, something forbidden to girls. However, thanks to her maternal grandfather, who owned a very productive hacienda in Amecameca, Inés lived a comfortable life with her mother on his estate, Panoaya, accompanied by an illustrious group of relatives who constantly visited or were visited in their surrounding haciendas. Her biological father, according to all accounts, was completely absent from her life. The name “Inés” was also present through their cousin Doña Inés de Brenes y Mendoza, married to a grandson of Antonio de Saavedra Guzmán, the first ever published American-born poet. The name “Inés” came from her maternal aunt “Doña” Inés Ramírez de Santillana, who received the name herself from her Andalusian grandmother “Doña” Inés de Brenes. She was baptized on 2 December 1651 with the name of “Inés” ("Juana" was only added after she entered the convent) described on the baptismal rolls as "a daughter of the Church". She was the illegitimate child of Don Pedro Manuel de Asuaje y Vargas-Machuca, a Spanish officer, and Doña Isabel Ramírez de Santillana y Rendón, a wealthy criolla, who inhabited the Hacienda of Panoaya, close to Mexico City. Owing to her Spanish ancestry and Mexican birth, Inés is considered a Criolla. Hacienda of Panoaya in Amecameca, residence of the Ramírez de Santillana family.ĭoña Inés de Asbaje y Ramírez de Santillana was born in San Miguel Nepantla (now called Nepantla de Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz) near Mexico City. Scholars now interpret Sor Juana as a protofeminist, and she is the subject of vibrant discourse about themes such as colonialism, education rights, women's religious authority, and writing as examples of feminist advocacy. Īfter she had faded from academic discourse for hundreds of years, Nobel Prize winner Octavio Paz re-established Sor Juana's importance in modern times. She died the next year, having caught the plague while treating her sisters. Her criticism of misogyny and the hypocrisy of men led to her condemnation by the Bishop of Puebla, and in 1694 she was forced to sell her collection of books and focus on charity towards the poor. She turned her nun's quarters into a salon, visited by New Spain's female intellectual elite, including Doña Eleonora del Carreto, Marchioness of Mancera, and Doña Maria Luisa Gonzaga, Countess of Paredes de Nava, both Vicereines of the New Spain, amongst others. After joining a nunnery in 1667, Sor Juana began writing poetry and prose dealing with such topics as love, environmentalism, feminism, and religion. Sor Juana educated herself in her own library, which was mostly inherited from her grandfather. Beginning her studies at a young age, Sor Juana was fluent in Latin and also wrote in Nahuatl, and became known for her philosophy in her teens. Sor Juana lived during Mexico's colonial period, making her a contributor both to early Spanish literature as well as to the broader literature of the Spanish Golden Age. Her contributions to the Spanish Golden Age gained her the nicknames of "The Tenth Muse" or "The Phoenix of America" historian Stuart Murray calls her a flame that rose from the ashes of "religious authoritarianism". Manuscript page from “Libro de professiones y elecciones de prioras y vicarias del Convento de San Gerónimo,” 1586–1713, which Sor Juana signed in ink and her own blood.ĭoña Inés de Asbaje y Ramírez de Santillana, better known as Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz OSH (12 November 1648 – 17 April 1695) was a Mexican writer, philosopher, composer and poet of the Baroque period, and Hieronymite nun.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |