Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz: Selected Works / Edition 1

by Juana Inés de la Cruz, Anna More, Edith Grossman

Overview

A wealth of background and analytical material makes Sor Juana's proto-feminist writings, newly translated, all the more compelling.

2014 PEN USA Literary Award for Translation Finalist

This Norton Critical Edition includes:
· Edith Grossman’s acclaimed translations of the Tenth Muse’s best-known works.
· Introductory materials and explanatory footnotes by Anna More along with numerous images.
· Additional works by Sor Juana, related writings by Ovid, Saint Teresa of Ávila, and Diego Calleja, and historical interpretations.
· Seven critical essays by Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo, Irving Leonard, Octavio Paz, Georgina Sabat de Rivers, Yolanda Martinez-San Miguel, Emilie Bergmann, and Charlene Villaseñor Black.
· Diana Taylor’s interview with Jesusa Rodríguez about performing “First Dream.”
· A Chronology and Selected Bibliography.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393920161
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	05/25/2016
Series:	Norton Critical Editions Series
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	384
Sales rank:	302,822
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Anna More is Professor of Hispanic Literatures at the University of Brasília.

Acclaimed for her best-selling translations of Cervantes, Gabriel García Márquez, and Mario Vargas Llosa, Edith Grossman (1936—2023) received many awards including the PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation.

Editorial Reviews

"Grossman [renders] Sor Juana’s rhythmic gifts in smart and elegant measures."

Booklist

"Her language is a lesson in speaking to the moment and to the centuries both, and Edith Grossman captures its suggestiveness with a calm elegance."

Alberto Ríos

08/18/2014
The first great poet to use a European language in the New World, Sor Juana (1651–1695) wrote elaborate, melancholy ballads, witty praise poems, tortured sonnets of love and mourning, dream-visions, allegories of empire and religion, barbed jokes, and vivid stage plays. Known in her day for her scholarly gifts as well as her poetic powers, the nun remains influential with Spanish-speaking and Latina writers today. Grossman—renowned translator of García Márquez, Cervantes, and other Spanish fiction—remains true to the meters and syllabic patterns, but not to the rhymes, in Sor Juana’s originals. While her accuracy is beyond question, her ear for verse can falter: in a love sonnet, Grossman’s Sor Juana says “I conceive her great beauty as something so/ sacred that audacity does not wish/ to give the slightest opening hope.” The absence of facing-page Spanish puts additional pressure on Grossman’s English sounds. Though the poetry fascinates, the most impressive part of this compact selection might be the prose at the end: Sor Juana’s famous 50-page defense of her life, her studies, and her writings against antifeminist currents in the Church. This careful book may ignite new attention to Sor Juana in English, for which Grossman will deserve even more praise. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

"Edith Grossman's contemporary translation renders the contemplations, rhymes, and drama of la Décima Musa ageless"

Ana Castillo

"Edith Grossman is a marvel. With the greatest artistry she has given vibrant, contemporary voice to Sor Juana, legendary proto-feminist bard of seventeenth-century Mexico, capturing the wit, tenderness, and religious fervor of her work."

Susan Bernofsky