17th Century Mexican Nun Poet Patriarchy Smasher

Poems, Protest, and a Dream: Selected Writings by Juana Inés de la Cruz
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz--the "sor" part meaning that she was, later in life, a nun--was born Inés de Asbaje y Ramírez de Santillana, and was a poet of the late 1600s in Mexico. Her story is amazing; the illegitimate daughter of a Spanish officer, she managed to get an education that was usually denied young women in colonial Mexico, and after reading everything she could find, became fluent in Latin and mastered Greek rhetoric. As a young teen, she ended up a lady-in-waiting in the viceroy's court, and became famous both for her learning and her poetry, astonishing the learned men who came to test her. She turned down many marriage proposals and eventually retired to a monastery with her books where she continued to write. Throughout her life, she faced obstacles to her writing and study, especially from the church, and had to fight to be allowed what intellectual freedom she had. The more scrutiny she faced, the more concessions she had to make, until the archbishop of Mexico condemned her, forcing her to stop writing. Much of what she did write is now lost.

This book is a bilingual version of a part of what remains, and what it contains is terribly impressive. The poet was brilliant, with an amazing command of history, literature, and scripture. The first work translated here, a long letter to Sor Filotea, offering arguments for educating women, is just so smart, filled with examples of educated women from antiquity and church history, all presented with flawless rhetoric. Reading it now, one wants to shake the foolish men (always men) who worked so hard to shut her up and stifle her for no reason other than patriarchy. Her patience and composure alone are impressive.

Besides a short play at the end, the rest of this volume is poetry. Some of it is very accessible and some is damn near impenetrable. (Speaking for myself.) Here are the first few lines of the 25-or-so-page poem called either "First I Dream" or "First Dream," depending on how you translate it (copied from a public domain version):

Pyramidal
death-born shadow of earth
aimed at Heaven
a proud point of vain obelisks pretending to scale the Stars;
but these lovely lights
–free always, always shining–
so easily evaded
the obscure war,
(whose black breath announced
the dreadful, unfettered shade)
the darkened brow
could not even reach the convex Orb of the thrice-blessed Goddess
who shows three shining faces,
but remained
in profound imperial silence,
lord only of the air
sullied with the dense breath
it exhaled
–admitting only
submissive cries of nocturnal birds, so deep and plangent,
the silence was not broken.

It's lyrical and surprising and impressive and so far beyond me... The translation in this book is a little different than the above, and it's very nice, but I would have liked a couple things:

• A literal translation rather than a poetic one, to make the Spanish easier for those of us attempting it, and/or
• Extensive notes making sense of the deeply obscure references and difficult language.

I suppose some of that exists online, so I'll take a look.

Fortunately, the other poems--sonnets and satires--are more accessible. I still would have liked literal translations rather than poetic approximations, but I suppose translators can't please everyone no matter what they do.

I definitely recommend looking into Sor Juana's life and poetry, and this book in particular is a nice introduction.

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