The Answer / La Respuesta, Including a Selection of Poems (A Feminist Press Sourcebook)

Book Description

Drawing on rich new scholarship, this translation restores Sor Juana's own emphasis and diction. Known as the First Feminist of America, the Mexican nun Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz (1648/51 - 1695) was a brilliant and popular poet, playwright, and essayist whose feminist theory stands as a link between that of Christine de Pizan and Mary Wollstonecraft in the struggle to establish the intellectual rights of women. Sor Juana's persistent defense of these rights brought her increasingly into conflict with church officials who wanted to silence her. The Answer (1691) is Sor Juana's culminating response to years of attacks. The introduction, bibliography, chronology, and complete Spanish texts of The Answer and nine poems make this volume the indispensable Sor Juana reader.

"One of the landmarks of Renaissance literature and an important document in the history of intellectual freedom.... Essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand not only this remarkable woman but also the whole world in which she forged her identity."-Stephen Greenblatt, UCLA Berkeley

* A 1995 PEN Center West Literary Translation Award Finalist *
* Alternate of the Quality Paperback Book Club *

Suggested for course use in:
Feminist Theory
Latin American Studies
Religious History
Women's history

Customer Reviews:

Bestest Answer Ever.......2006-03-06

The Answer/La Respuesta by Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, is the best answer I have ever read. In the Answer to Sor Filotea de la Cruz, Sor/sister Juana Ines de la Cruz wrote her autobiography, in which she reveals her drive as a woman/human being. Her pursuit of -capital T- Truth gained her close friends and cunning enemies. She was way ahead of her own time. I recommend this book very much. I enjoyed it. WA

One of the best translations of Sor Juana's "Response.".......1998-03-07

One of the finest recent translations of Sor Juana's "Response." The authors have done an outstanding job of translating and annotating the text. A "must read" for any Sor Juana scholar.

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sor juana wishes she could wake up from this one
History becomes herstory
poetic quest
A Note From the Author: Alicia Gaspar de Alba
A Must Read

Sor Juana's Second Dream: A Novel
Alicia Gaspar de Alba
Manufacturer: University of New Mexico Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0826320910

Book Description

This bold novel unravels the mystery and complexity of the woman Carlos Fuentes calls “the first great Latin American poet.” Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648-1695), poet, playwright, rhetorician, and musician, is often equated with Sappho, the lesbian poet whom Plato baptized the “Tenth Muse.”

The Mexican nun has fascinated readers around the world for centuries as scholars have attempted to understand her brilliance, her feminism, the affairs of her heart, her decision to enter a convent at the beginning of her luminous intellectual career.

Juana Ramírez de Asbaje, an illegitimate criolla, is sixteen when word of her self-taught erudition travels to the palace in Mexico City and she becomes an attendant to Doña Leonor Carreto, Marquesa de Mancera. Wanting only to study, confused by her love for la Marquesa, and loathe to marry, in five years Juana becomes Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz in the Convent of Santa Paula of the Order of San Jerónimo. There, her quill becomes her salvation and damnation as her notoriety mounts with each new artistic commission. Popular with court and clergy, she receives a stream of guests at the convent, among them la Condesa de Paredes, who becomes Sor Juana's intimate friend. More than two decades later, after brilliantly defending her right to think, teach, and write, Sor Juana appears before the Inquisition and abruptly withdraws from the spotlight.

Mixing fiction with Sor Juana's own words, and drawing on the most recent Sor Juana scholarship, Alicia Gaspar de Alba creates the most full-bodied portrait of Mexico's Tenth Muse to date. This remarkable novel about a remarkable woman will enlighten a new generation of readers, and stoke the interest of devotees who already are captivated by the inspiring Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz.

“An adventuresome exploration into the lyrical and historical vision of an extraordinary woman, written by an extraordinary novelist who has given us a new possibility to dream and invent Sor Juana Inés all over again.”—Marjorie Agosín, Wellesley College

“Beautifully written, without doubt the best book I have read this year. A masterpiece.”—Greg Sarris, author of Watermelon Nights

This historically accurate and beautifully written novel explores the secret inclinations, subjective desires, and political struggles of the 17th-century Mexican nun and poet.

Customer Reviews:

sor juana wishes she could wake up from this one.......2007-09-25

my principle regret is that young latino students and aspiring writers are often pointed to this and other like products from the publishing mills and told they are the "literary" models to follow. the book is replete with trite, canned sentiment expressed in stiffly-worded dialogue from the mouths of two-dimensional characters. too many of the descriptions are of the flowery, cake-decoration kind. the narrative is littered with redundancy as well as words that are simply misused or incongruent with the intended meaning. someone can use a remedial course in plain, effective style. it is a shame to hear such books as this one touted as the best in current "latino literature." unfortunately, such things often get published (and praised) on the strength of an author's academic connections and fashionable political sentiments rather than the worth of the writing.

History becomes herstory.......2007-05-29

As women living in the 21st Century, we have unlimited choices. That is why it is so difficult to imagine what it must have been like for Sor Juana. She was an intellectual giant in the New World, displaying her abilities in subjects ranging from ancient history to physics. She was a self-taught scholar. Even so, she was persecuted. Not simply because her views were extreme (though they were), but because extreme views or, in fact, views at all, were considered unseemly in women. Sor Juana's story, as well as the history of early Mexico, is the inspiration for this novel.
No doubt, Alicia Gespar de Alba takes poetic license. It is impossible to know the intimate details of Sor Jauna's everyday life, but this is a good educated guess. And it is breathtaking. Each page is a heartwrenching description of the passions that tore Sor Jauna apart. Many of her own words are used in the story, and the parts that are fiction blend beautifully with them.
In addition to its revelation of an early feminist, this book is also important in its description of Colonial Mexico. In the background of Sor Juana's story, the reader is able to view the precarious mix of church and crown, whites and indians, and intellectuals and idiots. The time period, of course, is an essential part of what happens to Sor Juana, but it is an interesting subject of its own.
I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the history of feminism or Mexico or to anyone who enjoys poetry or rhetoric. Be warned, though, when you discover what this woman went through for knowledge, you may not be able to take your freedom for granted anymore.

poetic quest.......2007-02-12

I thoroughly enjoyed being drawn into the world of Sor Juana. She was a genius, a gifted poet, dramatist, philospher, scientist, theologian and humanist who radically sought her personal truth despite the constrictions of the societal and ecclesiastical institutions of her day. I surmise that Sor Juana would likely not have taken the veil has she lived in our day but she chose the only route left to her within her social position to attain some manner of intellectual freedom. Alicia Gaspar de Alba is a master storyteller who knows the art of bringing the vivid colors and textures of her subject matter to life. Though I do realize that this is a work of fiction and share the author's conjecture that Sor Juana's affections most definately rested with those of her own sex and her passionate manner of writing to the same was not simply a rhetorical device of her time, I did sometimes question her literary license with regard to specific scenes which are ambiguous at best in historical accounts, not in the slightest because I think them distasteful but simply because I think the brilliance and passion of this woman is not compounded by the "fleshing" out of her sexuality in pure fantasy. The climate of the ecclesiastical world during the inquisition and the sad state of inner conventual politics makes her luminous literary heritage even more astonishing. Though the author does tell this dark aspect of the divisions and hypocracy of some member of the Spanish Catholic Church of Sor Juana's day, she never does it gratuitiously and one senses a balance as with the priests and other nuns who support her and even try to help her remain on a path of discretion when her passions overtake her rational judgement. It is truly sad that her star disappeared too soon from the heavens that she so loved gazing into with her telescope. In any case, I found it an intensely beautiful read which left me wanting to know more of the woman behind the words. I recommend this highly to anyone who wants to know Sor Juana without the censorship of other admirers of hers who would deny her one of the most elementary forces behind her creative working - her passion for the two women who helped her become fully the muse that she was.

A Note From the Author: Alicia Gaspar de Alba.......2005-08-25

I've just seen the new historical novel on Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, Hunger's Brides by Paul Anderson, and the terrific review it got in the New York Times on Monday, August. 23, 2005. Although the heft of the book is daunting, I look forward to reading it and comparing it to my own book, Sor Juana's Second Dream, which was published in 1999, and which, due to the limited distribution and publicity resources of a university press , has never gotten the kind of press or promotion that would have helped sell out the first print run by now. Perhaps Mr. Anderson's book will spur a mainstream interest in the amazing life of Mexico's "tenth muse," and readers will pick up a copy of both his book and mine, sold here on Amazon for the outrageous price of $12.95 for the hardback. To quote Sor Juana: "from what I keep silent, you will infer what it is I cannot say."

A Must Read.......2005-05-05

This is a very inspiring story of a strong-willed woman determined to defy the intellectual oppression of men during the seventeenth century. She can be compared to England's early feminist--Mary Astell--for her steadfast support of women's intellectual advancement.

It is a moving story, very sad, but essential.

The Devotional Exercises/los Ejercicios Devotos of Sor Juana Ines De La Cruz, Mexico's Prodigious Nun 1648/51-1695: A Critical Study And Bilingual (Mexican Studies)

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The Devotional Exercises/los Ejercicios Devotos of Sor Juana Ines De La Cruz, Mexico's Prodigious Nun 1648/51-1695: A Critical Study And Bilingual (Mexican Studies)
Grady C. Wray
Manufacturer: Edwin Mellen Press
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Binding: Hardcover

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Sor Juana--17th century genius
The book that started my love affair with a Mexican nun...
The amazing life of Sor Juana

Sor Juana: Or, the Traps of Faith
Octavio Paz
Manufacturer: Belknap Press
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Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0674821068

Book Description

Mexico's leading poet, essayist, and cultural critic writes of a Mexican poet of another time and another world, the world of seventeenth-century New Spain. His subject is Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, the most striking figure in all of Spanish-American colonial literature and one of the great poets of her age.

Her life reads like a novel. A spirited and precocious girl, one of six illegitimate children, is sent to live with relatives in the capital city. She becomes known for her beauty, wit, and amazing erudition, and is taken into the court as the Vicereine's protégée. For five years she enjoys the pleasures of life at court--then abruptly, at twenty, enters a convent for life. Yet, no recluse, she transforms the convent locutory into a literary and intellectual salon; she amasses an impressive library and collects scientific instruments, reads insatiably, composes poems, and corresponds with literati in Spain. To the consternation of the prelates of the Church, she persists in circulating her poems, redolent more of the court than the cloister. Her plays are performed, volumes of her poetry are published abroad, and her genius begins to be recognized throughout the Hispanic world. Suddenly she surrenders her books, forswears all literary pursuits, and signs in blood a renunciation of secular learning. The rest is silence. She dies two years later, at forty-six.

Octavio Paz has long been intrigued by the enigmas of Sor Juana's personality and career. Why did she become a nun? How could she renounce her lifelong passion for writing and learning? Such questions can be answered only in the context of the world in which she lived. Paz gives a masterly portrayal of the life and culture of New Spain and the political and ideological forces at work in that autocratic, theocratic, male-dominated society, in which the subjugation of women was absolute.

Just as Paz illuminates Sor Juana's life by placing it in its historical setting, so he situates her work in relation to the traditions that nurtured it. With critical authority he singles out the qualities that distinguish her work and mark her uniqueness as a poet. To Paz her writings, like her life, epitomize the struggle of the individual, and in particular the individual woman, for creative fulfillment and self-expression.

Customer Reviews:

Sor Juana--17th century genius.......2007-07-16

This is a balanced, penetrating examination of Sor Juana and the elements that shaped her life. She understood that her passion was the pursuit of knowledge and that she could never fulfill her life's work unless she became a nun. In addition to describing Sor Juana Paz enlightens his readers about the masculine society into which she was born. She was a brave, talented woman who spoke up for what she believed in.

The book that started my love affair with a Mexican nun..........2005-02-16

Over ten years ago, this book completely changed the course of events in my life for months. Let me explain!: I was wiling away the hours with nothing to do during a 2-week hospital stay in Madrid, going over the notes for my master's thesis about Spanish writer Juan Goytisolo, when someone suggested I read this masterpiece about a Baroque Mexican nun to pass the time. At first I thought the suggestion was absurd, hardly a book that would help the hours go by quickly, but I gave the book a chance (the Spanish-language version, of course) and soon met Sor Juana Inés, with whom my only previous encounters had been on a Mexican banknote.

Sor Juana Inés was so far ahead of her time that it would have been a miracle for her NOT to have been persecuted and ejected from the society of her times. Octavio Paz (could anything less be expected from such an author) makes her life even more fascinating than it probably was in reality, as he examines her comings and goings from birth to death, or at least as much as can possibly be known, since his study is probably the most thorough that exists. Sor Juana's biography is amazing and caused me to drop my thesis and change topics entirely. I spent my whole hospital stay engrossed in her tale of love, erudition and ill-fated struggles for equality. I can't shower enough praise on this book, which opened up my appetite for knowing more about her...since then I have read more and more, as well as all of Sor Juana's works, and never get enough. If you want to see what is was like to know that women deserved full equality, to have the intelligence beyond comparison and be forced to use that intelligence with the utmost care so as not to violate strict social norms, and get away with it for years, sor juana will be your heroine, as she should be for so many more women in this world who are unfamiliar with her.

This would be a great text for any hispanic literature, women's studies, gay and lesbian studies, mexican history or a wealth of other courses, or just as a text of interest to women and people in general.

The amazing life of Sor Juana.......2000-03-27

This book by the Nobel Prize winner Octavio Paz is a great account of the life of one of the best writers of Hispanic literature. Sor Juana created astonishing poems about life, love, and people. It is a pity that only little is known about the facts of her life. As with Shakespeare, must of what we know about her comes from her literary legacy. Octavio Paz is able to solve some of the mystery that surrounds Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz.

Sor Juana Ines De La Cruz O Las Trampas De La Fe (Obras Completas)

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The book that started my affair with a Mexican nun...
transported in time
This is the book to read if you want the real thing

Sor Juana Ines De La Cruz O Las Trampas De La Fe (Obras Completas)
Octavio Paz
Manufacturer: Fondo de Cultura Economica USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 9681639014

Customer Reviews:

The book that started my affair with a Mexican nun..........2005-02-17

Over ten years ago, this book completely changed the course of events in my life for months. Let me explain!: I was wiling away the hours with nothing to do during a 2-week hospital stay in Madrid, going over the notes for my master's thesis about Spanish writer Juan Goytisolo, when someone suggested I read this masterpiece about a Baroque Mexican nun to pass the time. At first I thought the suggestion was absurd, hardly a book that would help the time go by quickly, but I gave the book a chance (this Spanish-language version, of course) and soon met Sor Juana Inés, with whom my only previous encounters had been on a Mexican banknote.

Sor Juana Inés was so far ahead of her time that it would have been a miracle for her NOT to have been persecuted and ejected from the society of her times. Octavio Paz (could anything less be expected from such an author) makes her life even more fascinating than it probably was in reality, as he examines her comings and goings from birth to death, or at least as much as can possibly be known, since his study is probably the most thorough that exists. Sor Juana's biography is amazing and caused me to drop my original thesis and change topics entirely. I spent my whole hospital stay engrossed in her tale of love, erudition and ill-fated struggles for equality. Tomes could be written just on her correspondence with all the scholars and thinkers of the day. It is amazing to read how she manages to combine a life in the convent with a life of study, another of cultural activity, a social life rubbing elbows with Mexico's leadership class, and awareness and intellectual relations with countless (male) thinkers of the 17th century.

I can't shower enough praise on this book, which opened up my appetite for knowing more about her. Since then I have read more and more, as well as all of Sor Juana's works, and never get enough, with a special love for her "Response to Sister Filotea de la Cruz," a treatise on the equality of women's mind centuries before such ideas came into vogue. If you want to see what is was like to know that women deserved full equality, to have intelligence beyond comparison and to be forced to use that intelligence with the utmost care so as not to violate strict social norms, and get away with it for years, Sor Juana will be your heroine, as she should be for so many more women in this world who are unfamiliar with her.

This would be a great text for any hispanic literature, women's studies, gay and lesbian studies, Mexican history or a wealth of other courses, or just as a text of interest to women and people in general, so that they can get a practical case study in what women like Sor Juana must have suffered for centuries (and maybe even today in many places) when they tried to go beyond the boundaries that church, state and family had set down to keep them in their place.

transported in time.......2004-12-04

I'm not a particular fan of history or biography but couldn't put this book down. For all the information it offers the reader it's an incredibly un-dull read. It paints such a vivid picture of her life that I felt like I was there. Details were always fascinating, never tedious.

This is the book to read if you want the real thing.......1999-11-30

Octavio Paz, Nobel laureate, poet and one of the best writers of essays in the Spanish language, can give people seriously interested in learning about Sor Juana invaluable information in this beautifully researched book. Everything that is really known about her biography (not anachronistic twentieth-century storytelling and fantasy) is here; and, very importantly, authoritative background information on Colonial Mexican history and culture, social organization, religious practices and norms, and reading materials and habits. Sor Juana is a complex woman, a great reader and thinker that has to be understood in context. This book provides this, and also a sensitive and informed reading of her work. It is also a very good read. Modern-day fictional accounts are deceptive and will short-change you. Don't fall for them. This book is the real thing.

Six Masters of the Spanish Sonnet: Francisco de Quevedo, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, Antonio Machado, Federico Garcia Lorca, Jorge Luis Borges, Miguel Hernandez

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Masterful Translations of Spanish Sonnets
The Cream of Spanish Sonets
A Delightfull Collection of Written Art

Six Masters of the Spanish Sonnet: Francisco de Quevedo, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, Antonio Machado, Federico Garcia Lorca, Jorge Luis Borges, Miguel Hernandez

Manufacturer: Southern Illinois University
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Binding: Paperback

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Border of a Dream: Selected Poems of Antonio Machado

ASIN: 0809321270

Book Description

With poems selected and translated by one of the preeminent translators of our day, this bilingual collection of 112 sonnets by six Spanish-language masters of the form ranges in time from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries and includes the works of poets from Spanish America as well as poets native to Spain. Willis Barnstone’s selection of sonnets and the extensive historical and biographical background he supplies serve as a compelling survey of Spanish-language poetry that should be of interest both to lovers of poetry in general and to scholars of Spanish-language literature in particular.

Following an introductory examination of the arrival of the sonnet in Spain and of that nation’s poetry up to Francisco de Quevedo, Barnstone takes up his six masters in chronological turn, preceding each with an essay that not only presents the sonneteer under discussion but also continues the carefully delineated history of Spanish-language poetry. Consistently engaging and informative and never dull or pedantic, these essays stand alone as appreciations—in the finest sense of that word—of some of the greatest poets ever to write. It is, however, Barnstone’s subtle, musical, clear, and concise translations that form the heart of this collection. As Barnstone himself says, "In many ways all my life has been some kind of preparation for this volume."

Customer Reviews:

Masterful Translations of Spanish Sonnets.......2002-03-13

The sonnet form was introduced to Spain from Sicily in the fifteenth century through the writing of El Marqués de Santillana (1398-1458), a poet who wrote Petrarchan sonnets in Spanish. During the Renaissance, the Italian sonnet made its way to most of the countries of Western Europe. In England, Edmund Spenser changed the Petrarchan rhyming form of 'abba abba cdecde' to 'abab bcbc cdcd ee,' and William Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets with the form 'abab cdcd efef gg.' As Willis Barnstone says in the introduction to his book, 'Six Masters of the Spanish Sonnet,' 'the Spanish sonnet, a literary vagabond in courtly dress, began in the court of the Sicilian Frederic II, went up to England, and finally, seven centuries after its Italian birth, with its picaresque wits and form intact, dropped down just above the Antarctic Circle to appear in the poems of the Argentine Anglophile [his maternal grandmother was English] Borges.' Professor Barnstone goes on to present a thorough history of the evolution of the Spanish sonnet and a colorful biography of six Spanish language poets who used the form. His writing is informed by his long friendship with Jorge Luis Borges. Barnstone offers here a sampling of 112 Spanish sonnets by these six masters, placed side by side along with his own magnificent translations.

Francisco de Quevedo (1580-1645) is described as a 'monstruo de la naturaleza' [monster of nature] because of his prodigious outpouring of writing. 'Like Swift, Dostoyevski, and Kafka, he is one of the most tormented spirits and visionaries of world literature ['El Buscón' (The Swindler), 1626, is his masterpiece] and also one of the funniest writers ever to pick up a sharp, merciless pen.' Though Quevedo's sonnets are at times scatological and darkly satirical, they are also humorous and hopeful.

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648/51-1695) was a Mexican discalced Carmelite nun who is considered by some religious scholars to be the first female theologian of the Americas. Although I was familiar with her love poems and her articulate defense of a woman's right to write in 'Response to Sor Filotea,' I had not read her sonnets in translation before. As he does with all six sonneteers, Barnstone faithfully maintains Sor Juana's rhyming, meter, and cadence in his translations of her sonnets. His analysis encompasses her writing and her life, including some critique of Octavio Paz's definitive biography, 'Sor Juana, or The Traps of Faith.'

Antonio Machada (1875-1939) recalls the landscape of his native Sevilla in his sonnets. In, 'El amor y la sierra' (Love and the Sierra), he writes, 'Calabaga por agria serranía / una tarde, entre roca cenicienta. (He was galloping over harsh sierra ground, / one afternoon, amid the ashen rock).' Barnstone calls Machado 'the Wang Wei of Spain' because 'he uses the condition of external nature to express his passion.' As Petrarch had his Laura, Machado had his Guiomar (Pilar de Valderrama). In 'Dream Below the Sun,' he writes, 'Your poet / thinks of you. Distance / is of lemon and violet, / the fields still green. / Come with me, Guiomar. / The sierra will absorb us. / The day is wearing out / from oak to oak.'

Federico García Lorca (1898-1936) was a Spanish poet and playwright who was affected by Luis de Góngorra and gongorismo. His 'Gypsy Ballads' was 'the most popular book of poetry in the Spanish language in his time.' Barnstone states that 'his closest attachment, his passion, was the painter Salvador Dalí,' with whom he carried on a six year love affair. Luis Buñuel castigated him for his Andalusianism; indeed, Lorca felt that Buñuel's satiric and surrealist film 'Un chien andalu' mocked him. After traveling to New York and Havana, Lorca became 'the playwright of Spain' with his brilliant 'Bodas de Sangre' (Blood Wedding). His 'Sonnets of Dark Love,' unpublished during his lifetime, were probably written to Rafael Rodríguez Rapún, an engineering student. Barnstone believes that 'dark love' is an allusion to San Juan de la Cruz's 'dark night of the soul.'

Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) of Argentina considered himself a poet, though he was a master at prose. According to Barnstone, because of the blindness that afflicted Borges in midlife, 'he could compose and polish a sonnet while waiting for a bus or walking down the street' and then later dictate it from memory. 'Borges's speech authenticated his writing, his writing authenticated his speech. To have heard him was to read him. To have read him was to have heard him.' In 'Un ciego' (A Blindman), he says, 'No sé cuál es la cara que me mira / Cuando miro la cara del espejo; / No sé qué anciano acecha en su reflejo / Con silenciosa y ya cansada ira. (I do not know what face looks back at me / When I look at the mirrored face, nor know / What aged man conspires in the glow / Of the glass, silent and with tired fury.)'

Miguel Hernández (1910-1942), a poor goatherd and pastor from the province of Alicante in Spain, wrote his best poetry while imprisoned during the Spanish Civil War. 'In the prisons, Hernández became,' in Barnstone's opinion, 'the consummate poet of light, darkness, soul, time, and death.' One of his poems, 'Llegó con tres heridas' (He came with three wounds), is a popular song, recorded by Joan Baez on her 'Gracias a La Vida' album.

'Six Masters of the Spanish Sonnet' is recommended to all who love this poetic form and want to know more about the lives of these remarkable poets. A good index and list of references are included for further study.

The Cream of Spanish Sonets.......2000-10-20

The translation is marvelous: I read them all before in Spanish. And the Selection? Amazingly good ! Congratulations to the translator! It`s not an easy feat to translate Garcìa Lorca or Sor Juana Inès de la Cruz...eoither The Master: Quevedo...or Machado ( the name is ANTONIO, NOT ANTONIA ) The person who selected the poems is really knowing... If you want to read and enjoy the very best of Spanish written sonets...This Book is a Poetic "Bible " Don`t miss it !

A Delightfull Collection of Written Art.......2000-07-19

For those who already know the various authors of this book individually, words will be in excess to describe the treasures contained therein. The five Spanish already classical authors and Jorge Luis Borges closing the group with honors are a guarantee of high quality and deep touching entertainment. Tasting the fluent and sincere social verb of Quevedo, or absorbing in silence the sweet and perfect mysticism of Juana Inés would be sufficient to recommend this book. But we find much more, Machado, García Lorca and Miguel Hernández, marked by the horrors of the Spanish Civil War, found in their sensibility, the way to transform hate and blood into the purest and most powerful poetry. About Borges, well, what can one say about a man of his talents, his well known depth is something you will find easily linked to his enormous sensibility and human solidarity. Definitively, this multiple anthology is a treasure to keep forever.

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Obras Completas
Sor Juana Ines De LA Cruz
Manufacturer: Continental Book Co Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 9700750558

Sor Juana Ines De La Cruz: Selected Writings (Classics of Western Spirituality)

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Sor Juana Ines De La Cruz: Selected Writings (Classics of Western Spirituality)
Pamela Kirk Rappaport
Manufacturer: Paulist Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0809140128

Book Description

The interest in Mexican Hieronimite nun, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648-1695) is reaching extraordinary new levels. She has been the subject of plays, a feature film, scholarly conferences, books and articles. Nobel Laureate, poet Octavio Paz, has called her one of the great poets of the Spanish language and considers her Response to Sor Philotea de la Cruz to be the first intellectual autobiography in the Hispanic world.

At her death in 1695, Sor Juana was an internationally-known poet, dramatist and religious writer. Today, she is still considered an exceptional lyric poet and one of the great writers of Spain's siglo de oro, its Golden Age of drama. Latin American literary scholars have been continually enthralled by this nun of humble beginnings who was educated at the vice regal court in Mexico City after being recognized as a child prodigy. Until recently, though, their attention has been focused on her secular poetry and drama, to the neglect of her religious works.

Included here are: religious songs and devotional poetry; Sor Juana's sacramental drama and preface play, Divine Narcissus; two devotional works (first English translation), Devotional Exercises for the Feast of the Incarnation and Offerings for the Sorrows of Our Lady; a theological disputation, Critique of a Sermon/Athenagoric Letter and her autobiographical Response to Sor Philotea de la Cruz.

Customer Reviews:

Disappointing! A bad edition and printing........2006-02-20

This book is a poor edition and compilation of Sor Juana's poetry. First, it's small, thin, and printed in very poor quality yellowed paper with smudged ink. The content is not Sor Juana's best. Don't recommend it at all.

Sor Juana Ines De LA Cruz: Religion, Art, and Feminism

Average customer rating:

A Comprensive Glimpse

Sor Juana Ines De LA Cruz: Religion, Art, and Feminism
Pamela Kirk
Manufacturer: Continuum International Publishing Group
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 082641169X

Customer Reviews:

A Comprensive Glimpse.......2000-05-08

After writing my thesis on Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, entitled "La Evolucion del Feminismo en Mexico a traves la poesia de Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz," I think that I have a good grasp on what information is most relevant to her life and literary works. I have never read a book that examines the author so closely written in English! In addition, Pamela Kirk's perspective as both a literary critic and theologian provide many perspectives that I had never considered. Don't hesitate to buy this book!

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