The Answer / La Respuesta (Expanded Edition): Including Sor Filotea's Letter and New Selected Poems

by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Electa Arenal (Translator), Amanda Powell (Translator)

Overview

Defiant writing by the first feminist of the Americas—the Mexican nun Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz—in response to the church officials that tried to silence her.

Known as the first feminist of the Americas, the Mexican nun Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz enjoyed an international reputation as one of the great lyric poets and dramatists of her time. The Answer/La Respuesta (1691) is is Sor Juana's impassioned response to years of attempts by church officials to silence her. While earlier translators have ignored Sor Juana's keen awareness of gender, this volume brings out her own emphasis and diction, and reveals the remarkable scholarship, subversiveness, and even humor she drew on in defense of her cause.

This expanded, bilingual edition combines new research and perspectives on an inspired writer and thinker. It includes the fully annotated primary text responding to the church officials; the letter that ultimately provoked the writing of The Answer; an expanded selection of poems; an updated bibliography; and a new preface.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781558616233
Publisher:	Feminist Press at CUNY, The
Publication date:	06/01/2009
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	232
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648/51-1695), a Mexican nun, was a brilliant poet, playwright, and essayist whose persistent defense of the intellectual rights of women brought her increasingly into conflict with church officials, who repeated tried to silence her. Sor Juana died by taking care her sister nuns during a plague in April 1695.

Electa Arenal, professor emerita of Hispanic and Women's Studies (City University of New York), is a translator and specialist in Hispanic monastic women's culture. Listed in Feminists Who Changed America, Arenal's fourth co-authored book, an illustrated, critical edition of Sor Juana's Neptuno alegórico, is forthcoming from Editorial Cátedra, in Spain.

Amanda Powell, award-winning poet and translator, teaches Latin American and Spanish literature and literary translation at the University of Oregon. Powell has published essays on: 16th- and 17th-century Spanish and Colonial Latin American women writers; convent writings; Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz; the "boom" in women's love poetry across 17th century Europe; and literary translation.

Table of Contents

Preface to the Second Edition vii

Preface to the First Edition xvii

Acknowledgments xxi

Abbreviations xxiii

Chronology xxiv

Introduction

I Sor Juana's Life and Work 1

Juana Ramirez / Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz (1648/51-1695): A Life Without and Within 1

A Poet-Scholar: Sor Juana's Writing 15

II La Respuesta / The Answer: A Reading 19

Sor Juana's Art and Argument 19

The Issues at Stake 25

A Different Worldview, a Different Law: A Woman-Centered Vision 31

A Note on the Texts 37

Respuesta de la poetisa a la muy ilustre sor Filotea de la Cruz 38

The Poet's Answer to the Most Illustrious Sister Filotea de la Cruz 39

Annotations to La Respuesta / The Answer 106

Selected Poems

Introduction 144

Romance: Prologo al lector / Ballad: Prologue to the Reader of these Poems 154

Sonetos / Sonnets

Este, que ves, engano colorido 158

This object which you see 159

Si los riesgos del mar considerara 158

With all the hazards of the sea in mind 159

Esta tarde, mi bien, cuando te hablaba 160

This afternoon, my darling, when we spoke 161

Detente, sombra de mi bien esquivo 160

Don't leave me, shadow of elusive love 161

<$$$>Que es esto, Alcino? 162

What's this, Alcino? 163

Mandas, Anarda, que sin llanto asista 162

Anarda, you command me to observe 163

Satira filosofica / Philosophical Satire

Hombres necios que acusais 164

You foolish and unreasoning men 165

Villancicos / Carols

For the Feast of the Assumption, 1676

Vengan a ver una apuesta 168

They're betting, so hurry for all that you're worth 169

La soberana Doctora 172

She is a sovereign Doctor 173

Aquella Zagala 174

That shepherd lass 175

Forthe Feast of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, 1691

De una mujer se convencen 178

The learned men of Egypt 179

Rosa es, cuyo casto velo 182

She is a Rose, and when she flowered 183

Erase una Nina 186

Once upon a time this Girl 187

Romance epistolar / Epistolary Ballad

Valgate Apolo por hombre! 190

Apollo help you, as you're a man! 191

Romance decasilabo / Ballad in Variant Meter

Lamina sirva el Cielo al retrato 202

Heavenly should be the canvas to bear the portrait 203

Selected Bibliographies

Bibliography to the Second Edition 207

Bibliography to the First Edition 213

Appendix

Carta de Sor Filotea de la Cruz 222

Letter from Sor Filotea de la Cruz 223

Index 232

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Answer/La Respuesta
“The Answer is eloquent, sardonic, learned and, particularly in its autobiographical part, of great freshness.” —The Times Literary Supplement
”The Answer, which includes a biography, bibliography, and chronology, renders the work accessible and fascinating to modern readers.” —Ms. Magazine
“Of the several editions available, this one alone focuses its analysis on the issue of gender. Recommended for informed readers.” —Library Journal
“This is 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, best-selling author and professor
“With The Answer/La Respuesta, readers in English gain more than a new version: they gain far greater access to the wide range of information one needs to approach Sor Juana as a knowledgeable participant in the discussion her work invites.” —Carol Maier, translator of The Ravine (El Barranco)

From the Publisher