Sor Juana, Lunarejo, and the Colonial Literary Space and Its Limits

Abstract

In 1690, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, nee Juana de Asbaje, the most famous of all Spanish American colonial poets, published a theological essay with the unwieldy title “Athenagoric Letter of Sister Juana Inés de la Cruz, a Professed Nun in the Most Spiritual Convent of San Jerónimo ... Printed and Dedicated to That Same Sister by Sister Filotea de la Cruz, Her Studious Follower in the Convent of the Most Holy Trinity in Puebla de los Ángeles.”¹ Called by Octavio Paz “an ill-fated letter” (389),² the official reaction to its publication by Mexican ecclesiastical authorities led to Sor Juana’s being forbidden to write and, indeed, practice any intellectual activity in 1694. The persecution of Sor Juana by the Church was a manifestation of its entrenched misogyny, which made her incursion into the field of theology unacceptable. But before her imposed silence in 1694 and death the following year, she would compose an intellectual defense, her 1691 “Respuesta a Sor Filotea de la Cruz” (“Response to Sor Filotea de la Cruz”), a true apologia pro vita sua.