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Tenth Muse

An Essay in Commemoration of the Three Hundredth Anniversary of the Birth of Sor Juana Inés*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Extract

The room was rude and probably a little damp, because of the altitude and the prodigious rains sustained on the sierra, but it was also substantial, thick-walled in adobe and floored with the great rough bricks universally used in the period. Heavy, hand-hewn beams supported the weight of the sloping roof, made snug by countless overlapping tiles. The gloom of the rude chamber was candle-spotted, revealing, if dimly, its meagre but heavy furnishings; and a hearth fire must have contributed additional brightening, since it was nearing the very coldest season in the highlands, November. It was November 12 and approaching midnight in the Year of Grace, 1651.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1951

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Footnotes

*

Digested from the book, which will be a 1951 publication of the St. Anthony Guild Press, Paterson, N. J.

References

1 Juana, Sor, Carta Atenagórica, Respuesta a Sor Filotea. Edited by Gómez, Ermilio Abreu (Mexico: Ediciones Botas, 1934), pp. 5455.Google Scholar

2 Ibid., p. 55.

3 Quoted by Nervo, Amado, Juana de Asbaje (La Plata, Argentina: Calomino, 1946), p. 149 Google Scholar. Nervo copied the Callejo manuscript held at the Real Biblioteca de Madrid; he quoted from it in the appendices of the afore-mentioned book.

4 Sor Juana, op. cit., p. 55.

5 Ibid.

6 Ramírez-España, Guillermo, La Familia de Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma, 1947)Google Scholar.

7 Although some of Juana’s biographers would have it that she resided with her grandfather in Mexico, Ramírez-España publishes the last will and testament of Don Pedro Ramirez signed at Panaoyan presumably from his deathbed in 1655 when Juana was four years old.

8 Sor Juana, op. cit., p. 58.

9 Amado Nervo, op. cit., p. 67.

10 Ibid.

11 Ibid., p. 71.

12 Chávez, Ezequiel, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Su Vida y Su Obra (Barcelona: Editorial Araluce, 1931), p. 47.Google Scholar

13 It would necessarily have been during her days at Court because of the circumstances of all the rest of her adult life.

14 Juana, Sor, Poesias. Edited by Gómez, Ermilio Abreu (Mexico: Ediciones Botas, 1940), pp. 192196.Google Scholar

15 Amado Nervo, op. cit., pp. 166–167.

16 Guillermo Ramírez-España, op. cit., p. 17.

17 On p. 297 of the Segundo Volumen de las Obras de Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1692) there would seem to appear the only hint of her interest in the subject of dishonorable birth in her poems: “El no ser padre honrado/fuera defecto a mi ver,/si, como recibi el ser/de el, se lo hubiera yo dado.”

18 Juana, Sor, Carta Atenagórica, pp. 5556.Google Scholar

19 Amado Nervo, op. cit., pp. 151–152.

20 Ibid., p. 26.

21 Ibid.

22 Juana, Sor, Carta Atenagórica, p. 55.Google Scholar

23 Amado Nervo, op. cit., p. 27.

24 It is still the largest.

25 Obregon, Luís González, México Viejo (Mexico: Patria, S. A., 1945), p. 260.Google Scholar

26 Amado Nervo, op. cit., pp. 42–43.

27 Ibid., p. 89.

28 Juana, Sor, Carta Atenagórica,. pp. 5758.Google Scholar

29 Amado Nervo, op. cit., p. 89.

30 Ibid., p. 41.

31 Ibid., p. 61.

32 Ibid., p. 55.

33 Ibid,

34 Ibid.

35 Ibid., p. 59.

36 Ibid.

37 Ibid., pp. 80–81.

38 Ibid., p. 81.

39 Ibid., pp. 105–106.

40 Ibid., p. 106.

41 Juana, Sor, Carta Atenagórica, p. 66.Google Scholar

42 Ibid.

43 Amado Nervo, op. cit., p. 99.

44 Ibid.

45 Ibid., p. 100.

46 Ibid., p. 103.

47 Ibid., p. 101.

48 Ibid., p. 117.

49 Ibid., p. 135. Calleja refers to “the four thousand friends that composed it.”

50 Gómez, Ermilio Abreu, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Bibliographía y Biblioteca (Mexico: Ediciones Botas, 1934), pp. 339346.Google Scholar

51 Juana, Sor, Carta Atenagórica, pp. 6667.Google Scholar

52 Ibid.

53 Amado Nervo, op. cit., p. 119.

54 Ezequiel Chávez, op. cit., pp. 356–357.

55 Chapter (unnumbered) beginning p. 53.

56 Junco, Alfonso, Gente de Méjico (Mexico: Ediciones Botas, 1937), p. 180.Google Scholar

57 Alfonso Junco, op. cit., p. 180.

58 Juana, Sor, Carta Atenagórica, p. 17.Google Scholar

59 The title was not Sor Juana’s, nor is “Atenagórica” a Spanish term. It was apparently coined by the personage who authorized publication, and is a combination of “Athena,” goddess of wisdom, and “allegory.” For English translation of document, see this writer’s “Tenth Muse,” forthcoming publication of the St. Anthony Guild Press.

60 Abreu Gómez is an exception. See his edition of the work already cited.

61 Probably Bishop Fernández de la Santa Cruz (Puebla).

62 Amado Nervo, op. cit., p. 125.

63 Ibid., p. 126.

64 Ibid.

65 Juana, Sor, Carta Atenagórica, pp. 4748 Google Scholar.

66 Ibid.

67 Amado Nervo, op. cit., p. 128.

68 The Portuguese Augustinian nun, Sor Margarita Ignácia, published a strong rebuttal of “La Carta” in Europe.

69 Juana, Sor, Carta Atenagórica, p. 50.Google Scholar

70 Ibid., p. 81.

71 Amado Nervo, op. cit., p. 136.

72 Ibid.

73 MacGregor, Fernández, La Sanctificación de Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, p. 109.Google Scholar

74 Amado Nervo, op. cit., p. 135.

75 Ibid., p. 138.

76 Ibid., pp. 140–141.

77 Father Calleja erred in computation. Sor Juana lived forty-three years, five months, five days and five hours.

78 Amado Nervo, op. cit., p. 147.