The purpose of this final presentation is to provide a deeper investigation into one of the first Chicano-gothic characters we encountered in this class, Concepcion Benavidez of Calligraphy of the Witch. A sequel to Professor Gaspar’s novel Sor Juana’s Second Dream, I decided to take an in depth look to where this character found her origins and how she came  to find herself in the Massachusetts Bay Colony during the volatile era of the Salem Witch Trials. Sor Juana’s Second Dream chronicles the life of the celebrated feminist, Latina poet Sor Juana Ines De La Cruz who in the novel, takes on a young apprentice, Concepcion. Many of the Chicano-gothic elements found within Calligraphy of the Witch were also present within this work and through my exploration of this text I provide a more comprehensive look at Gaspar’s techniques and style as a Chicano-gothic author and how the lives of these two influential Chicano women intertwined. Much of Sor Juana’s poetry and other works are subject to scholarly examination, however, not much is known regarding her life and how this nun, with such deeply amorous and feminist tendencies embedded in her poetry, found herself in the convent. Professor Gaspar’s novel provides an intriguing look into the life of one of the earliest feminist poets.

The Life of Sor Juana Ines De La Cruz: The Tenth Muse of Mexico

(Image credit: en.wikipedia.org)

Born circa November 12^th, 1651 in the small Mexican village of San Miguel Nepantla, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz is considered the first great Latin American poet and one of the most important figures in Hispanic literature to date. For centuries this Mexican nun has fascinated scholars and readers alike with her poetic brilliance, pioneering feminism, and all-encompassing intellect. Renowned for her accomplishments as a playwright, rhetorician, and musician, Sor Juana is often equated with Sappho, the lesbian poet whom was responsible for identifying Plato as the “Tenth Muse.” In her novel Sor Juana’s Second Dream, Alicia Gaspar de Alba chronicles the life of this captivating figure. De Alba gracefully employs the genre of historical fiction as she accurately archives the events of this 16^th century nun’s life. She manages to mix Sor Juana’s own words and literary works with psychological and emotional components she herself imagined in order to create a full-bodied portrait of Mexico’s Tenth Muse. While much debate continues regarding the potency of Sor Juana’s language of love employed in her works, and whether it may have been manifested by her classification as what we would contemporarily define as a “lesbian”, De Alba provides her readers with a dynamic portrayal of this far removed historical figure who’s radically progressive poetry was an unwavering voice during a time of fervent religious persecution and gender disparity.   Juana Ines de la Cruz was born out of wedlock to Isabel Ramirez and Manuel de Asbaje in the small village of Nepantla (the village has since been renamed Nepantla de Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz in her honor) in Mexico, New Spain. After being abandoned by her father, Juana and her mother were taken in by her grandfather, Pedro Ramirez. It was in Pedro’s book-filled house that Juana acquired her voracious appetite for academia of all sorts, until at the age of eight, following the death of her grandfather, she was moved under the care of her aunt Maria’ and her husband in Mexico City. As an illegitimate criolla, a native inhabitant of Spanish America but of European descent, the opportunity for social ascent was severely limited. However, by her sixteenth birthday, word of this self-educated prodigy made its way to the palace of the Spanish viceroy where Juana became a lady-in-waiting to the la Marquesa de Mancera. Here, Juana cultivates an intimate relationship with the Vicereine, accompanying her on all her errands, bathing her, and giving her private concerts displaying her musical prowess on the mandolin. Juana’s notoriety continued to grow during her tenure in the palace, notably after, as commissioned by the viceroy, the most well-known academics and theologians gathered to challenge Juana in a contest of scholarly intellect, Juana handling each opponent with ease. Wanting only to study, Juana soon becomes plagued by melancholy as confusion surrounding her love for la Marquesa and loath to marry, push her in the direction of the convent. Deterred after only a few months by the Clementine order’s predilection for self- flagellation and little sleep, with Padre Antonio as her father confessor, Juana becomes Sor Juana Ines De La Cruz in the Convent of Santa Puebla of the Order of San Jeronimo.  Here in the order of, the San Jeronimo, “her quill becomes her salvation and damnation.”Sor Juana is quickly elected to the position responsible for creating and archiving the entire history of the San Jeronimo order, a position creating uniquely for her. She is given her own cell, complete with bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, library, and servant. Her library — which held Mexico’s largest book collection — developed into a meeting-place for the intellectual elite. As Juana continues to gain favor with clergy and the court, the streams of guests and constant artistic commissions from local nobility, the number on her list of enemies within the convent and the religious hierarchy begins to climb. One such guest, la Condesa de Paredes, becomes an intimate friend of Juana’s and becomes the catalyst which produces one of Juana’s most celebrated works, “La Respuesta a Sor Filotea.” Together, Sor Juana and Maria Luisa embark on a passionate friendship that throughout De Alba’s novel weaves in and out of the boundaries of a romantic relationship. This hidden relationship produces the amorous poetry for which Sor Juana is so critically acclaimed. It was in her secret correspondence with Maria Luisa, or publically known as La Condesa, that Juana created beautiful lines such as “That you’re a woman far away is no hindrance to my love: for the soul, as you well know, distance and sex don’t count.” (Gaspar 167) While in scholarly analysis it is unclear whether Sor Juana was a lesbian in modern-day standards, in Gaspar De Alba’s novel, these lines embodying a solidarity among women and sublime affinity that transcends gender stem from her romantic infatuation with la Condesa. One her most renowned anti-male poems “You Men”embodies the determination and bravery she constantly demonstrated in not allowing her brilliance to be stifled in a society where intelligent and capable women like her were considered unacceptable. Sor Juana criticizes the Machismo of her time and the disparities in how knowledge was imparted, and the diminished value women were assigned. However, it was not the feminist content of her poetic verses that attracted persecution on the behalf of her contemporaries.

Undoubtedly her most noteworthy and most controversial work was her Response to the Illustrious Sor Filotea, or more commonly known as La Repuesta . Her response was a direct byproduct after a private letter of Sor Juana’s in which she uses ingenious discourse to develop her position on a theological debate concerning Christ’s crucifixion became public. When the Archbishop of Mexico attempted to silence her and tarnish her reputation, Sor Juana wrote La Repuesta as her defense; her defining work, but ultimately the instrument of her downfall. In a brilliant display of rhetorical and linguistic skills which has earned her notoriety among scholars today, Sor Juana turned around the logic used by the Church to justify her oppression and subverted it into a magnificent defense for women’s intellectual rights and education. Channeling the inner psyche of Sor Juana’s voice, Gaspar de Alba describes the inkwell as her “blood” and the goose quill her “sword.” (Gaspar 350) Though the letter’s tone is superficially humble, Sor Juana forcefully insists that women have a natural right to the mind. Her use of biblical evidence to support her call for strong, educated women is one of the pieces greatest strengths. Although insightful and astonishingly progressive, Sor Juana’s La Repuesta attracted indignation from the Church during a time when the Inquisition’s influence was beginning to wane, but its presence in New Spain was not a force to be trifled with. As a result of the unwanted attention, the eyes of the Inquisition now fixed firmly on her activity within the convent, Sor Juana was forced to renounce all forms of her writing and scholarly study, and confess to the sinful nature of her writings and scandalous behavior lest she be charged with heresy and blasphemy. Not much exists regarding Sor Juana’s life following her renunciation of her scholarship at the hands of the Inquisition. She lived a nun’s existence until her death in 1695, succumbing to illness while caring for the victims of epidemic.   Professor Gaspar interprets Sor Juana with meticulous scholarship and a feminist perspective. The intellect’s decision to enter a religious order has puzzled her readers over the centuries. Her friendships and relationships with women are evident in her works. The author has extrapolated from the facts a basis for lesbian sexuality, and this is realistically depicted in her novel. Juana makes the choice to enter the convent not as a positive vocation, although she is devout, but as a rejection of marriage and childbearing. In flawlessly capturing the voice of Sor Juana in what lead her to her choose a life of religious devotion, Professor Gaspar writes, “Destiny is the cage each woman is born with, and we can’t ever leave that cage.” (Gaspar 232) Forever altered by a traumatizing act of sexual abuse by her uncle when she was a young girl, Sor Juana was fated to reject the female norms that society placed upon her, ultimately finding unstable solace in the convent. While her enemies called her an unnatural woman and accused her of mocking her religious vows, her progressive feminist ideals and poetic prowess have earned her the title of Mexico’s “Tenth Muse.”