First Undercurrents

Abstract

The relations between Brazilian and Mexican artists and intellectuals predate the establishment of these two paradigmatic giants of Latin America as independent nations. The first signs of contact involve no other than two outstanding figures of colonial literature: the Jesuit Antonio Vieira (1608–1697), who lived in Brazil from the age of 6 until 33, and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1651–1695), born and raised in Nueva España. Sor Juana’s Carta Atenagórica, published in 1690 by the bishop of Puebla, links the world-famous Jesuit preacher and the greatest poet of colonial Mexico. In this letter, Sor Juana offers a bold refutation of one of Vieira’s Sermões do Mandato [Maundy Thursday Sermons] first heard in 1655 in the Igreja de Nossa Senhora da Misericórdia of Lisbon at the very height of Vieira’s influence in the Portuguese court,¹ when Sor Juana was four years old.