In her literary work and convent life Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. Basque-Mexican poet and prose writer, known as the "Phoenix of Mexico". She was born in San Miguel de Nepantla, on 12 November 1651. She was the daughter of Pedro Manuel de Asbaje, from Vergara, in Guipúzcoa, and Isabel Ramírez. Her mother, it seems, was a descendant of Doña Catalina Xuárez de Marcaida, the first wife of Hernán Cortés. As a very young girl, she was already thinking about university. Cecilia G. de Guilarte (Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. Claro en la Selva. Ekin. Buenos Aires, 1958), brings us the autobiographical quote: "...I began to kill my mother with insistent and inopportune entreaties to change my dress and send me to Mexico, to the house of some relatives I had, to study and go to university: she did not want to do it and she did it very well". We must bear in mind that women did not have access to university, hence her idea of dressing as a man.
Juana de Asbaje's impetuosity towards knowledge had already manifested itself at school, where she learned to read by deceiving her teacher and her own mother. At the age of eight she was taken to Mexico, to her maternal grandfather's house. "But I awakened the desire to read many books that my grandfather had, without punishment or reprimands being enough to hinder it". He earned his first book by composing a Loa for a feast to the Blessed Sacrament. She studied Latin, rhetoric and philosophy with her uncle, Father Pedro José de Olivas. She was a lady of the vicereine Doña Leonor de Castro. Her beauty, wit and grace shone in the viceregal court.
At the palace she devoted herself to study and was subjected to a public examination of all the faculties, in the vicereine's palace, before 40 professors of the University, theologians, philosophers, humanists and mathematicians, which was a cause of general amazement. When her exceptional gifts, her beauty, her youth, her poetic genius and her position at court augured a brilliant social future for her, she chose the monastic life. On 14th August 1667 she entered the convent of San José, of the Carmelite nuns of Delcalzas, from which she left after three months due to illness. At the age of 18, on 23rd February 1668, he entered the convent of San Jerónimo for good.
When he had already been in the convent for 10 years, his great friendship with the vicereine, Countess of Paredes, was born. The portrait we know of Cabrera in the habit of a Hieronymite nun leaves no doubt as to her physical beauty. She is one of those clear, delicate and rounded beauties, coming in a straight line from the green and juicy valleys of Guipuzcoa (C. G. Guilarte).
His literary work is in verse and prose. Her verses of profane love, according to Menéndez y Pelayo, are "among the softest and most delicate that have come from a woman's pen". She invented a new metre, of single lines of 10 syllables, the first of which is always sdrújula, which gives it a rare hardness. Almost all his work is contained in three volumes printed in Madrid: the first, in 1714, of about 335 pages; the second, of 470, in 1745 and the third, entitled Fama y obras póstumas del Fénix de México..., of 320, in 1714. The latter was published by Don Juan Ignacio de Castorena y Ursua, Prebendary of the Holy Metropolitan Church of Mexico. Ref.: Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz poetess of Basque lineage, by G. Garriga, in "B. A. (de) E. V.", nos. 7 and 8.
Sor Juana's literary oeuvre is divided into: Obras poéticas menores, Obras teatrales and Escritos en prosa. The first comprises a large number of sonnets -more than sixty-, glosses in tenths, romances, lyrics, endechas, carols, etc., full of grace and wit and always fluid (G. Garriga). In his carols he used to intersperse couplets in Latin, Portuguese, Guinean, Mexican and Basque, his paternal language. His plays are religious, historical-allegorical and theological autos sacramentales and some comedies. We will mention some autos sacramentales: San Hermenegildo, Divino Narciso, el Mártir del Sacramento, El cetro de José, etc. His comedies of most merit are: Los empeños de una casa and Amor es más laberinto. His prose works can compete with those of the best Spanish-language writers of his time. The most notable are: Crisis sobre un sermón (34 pages) and Respuesta a Sor Filotea (52 pages).... This is the most important of all, because of the autobiographical data it contains, the defence it makes of female intelligence and her right to culture and teaching. For this defence of women's rights Juana de Asbaje -Sor Juana- is the pioneer and founder of world feminism.
At the height of her literary triumph, the episode of the Carta Athenagórica (1690) arose in Sor Juana's life and caused her great sorrow. The judgement or criticism of a sermon by the famous Portuguese Jesuit Father Antonio Vieira (1608-1697), issued at the insinuation of the Bishop of Puebla, Manuel Fernández de Santa Cruz, gave rise to this case which put Sor Juana's human, religious and even literary qualities to the test. The prelate was an assiduous reader of Father Vieira's sacred prayers. He had been surprised by some of the concepts of the sermon delivered in Lisbon on Holy Thursday in 1650. After the discussions the bishop and Sister Joan, the latter sent him her opinion in writing: "I have obeyed you in what you commanded me: although this paper is so private that I am only writing it because you command it...". The bishop published it under his own invented title of Carta Athenagórica. Father Núñez de Miranda, a Jesuit and confessor of Sister Juana, severely disapproved of it. He withdrew his friendship and tried to unite other priests and even the archbishop of Mexico, D. Francisco de Aguiar y Seixas (G. Garriga) in the censure. This manoeuvre did not succeed, as the poet enjoyed a great reputation and would have had plenty of distinguished defenders. The Spanish-American-Portuguese literary world was shocked. The bishop of Puebla, the apparently unwitting cause of all this commotion, wrote a letter to Sor Juana, affectionate at heart, but a reprimand that "wounded her to the core of her soul by presuming that her love of profane letters was to the detriment of divine ones" (G. Guilarte). This public letter was signed with the pseudonym of Sor Filotea de la Cruz. The seemingly exorbitant consequences of his criticism of the above sermon cannot be understood if we ignore the personality of Fr Vieira. The admired author Cecilia G. de Guilarte, in her aforementioned work, gives us a good biographical summary. Referring to Fr Vieira, Abbé Raynal considers one of his sermons, delivered in Bahia in 1640, as "the most extraordinary ever delivered in a Christian pulpit". Extraordinary must have been all his, for they earned him the unbounded favour of the King of Portugal, John IV, who made him royal preacher and adviser in government affairs. There is something exorbitant in all that concerns Fr Vieira. Ordained in 1635, he began his diplomatic career in 1647 and in everything he shone with extreme wit, daring and boldness. Only royal authority and favour prevented his expulsion from the Society of Jesus. In Brazil, with the enthusiasm he put into everything he did, he devoted himself to the defence of Indians and blacks against the abuses of landowners and politicians, of whom he became an implacable whipping boy. Finally deported, having lost the right to teach, preach and write because of his constant difficulties with the Inquisition, he appealed to Rome and succeeded in having his sentence reviewed, coming out not only clean of guilt but glorified. He was able to return to Portugal victorious, in possession of an extraordinary Brief that exempted him from the power of the Portuguese Grand Inquisitor (Guilarte). When Sor Juana challenged his sermon, Fr Vieira was in Brazil, as Provincial Superior, engaged in revising and publishing his sermons. We know nothing of Fr Vieira's reaction. It would be necessary to go into the immense world of the archives of the Society, the biographies of its members, many published in long series of volumes (Fr. Astrain: Historia de la Compañía de Jesús and others). Sister Juana was accused of attacking the Society of Jesus, but she defended herself with her usual clarity and grace. Undoubtedly, Sister Juana's feat was the most outstanding event in the intellectual world of her time. She had refuted the most formidable sacred orator of her time in the vast Spanish-Lusitanian world. Not forgetting that Father Antonio Vieira left an immense literary work, in addition to the 15 volumes of his sermons, and is considered the first prose writer among the Portuguese classics.
The Response to Sor Filotea de la Cruz is perhaps Sor Juana's best work. It is like the finishing touch to her literary work. She would write no more secular poems. She would only dedicate herself, with great fervour, to the work of her sanctification, with harsh penances, despite her delicate health. While his works were being published in Europe, he disposed of his rich library (4,000 volumes), his artistic and scientific instruments, the valuable gifts sent by admirers of his literary work, and he wrote two protestations of faith in his own blood. He sold everything and distributed it among the poor. In some of her works, mainly in a Christmas carol and a letter, she affirms her Basque ancestry, her condition as a Basque and her love for her land of origin. These two verses and the refrain of his carol are a sample. "No one should swear in Basque that you swear to the eternal God, that this is the same language cut from my grandparents' mouth". His generous soul proposes to the Virgin of Aránzazu: "Guacen galanta, contigo guacen nere lastana que al cielo toda Vizcaya (País Vasco) has de entrar". Her touching refrain: "Galdunaiz ¡ay! que se va nere vici gucico galdunaiz". In her letter to Don Juan de Orbe y Arbieto she clearly states her Basque origin: "Being as I am a branch of Vizcaya and Vuesa Merced of your most noble families, of the houses of Orbe and Arbieto, may the fruits return to their trunk, and the streams of my discourses pay their tribute to the sea in which they recognise their origin".
The figure of Juana de Asbaje -Sor Juana- is analysed in the light of her work. Sor Juana and Saint Teresa are studied in parallel. The Toulouse author G. de Guilarte, in her aforementioned work, gives us a note in this respect: "The comparison of the lives of Saint Teresa and Sister Juana", says Ermilo Abreu Gómez, "reveals divergences and antagonistic values. Divergences that lie both in nature and in the exercise of the spiritual faculties. In Sor Juana, thought rules, in Santa Teresa, sensitivity. In the former, logical knowledge, in the latter, the infused term. The Saint's aims, from childhood, were to sacrifice herself for the love of God; the nun's aims were confined to the study of letters and life. Sister Juana wanted to know the world and enter the University; Saint Teresa wanted to go to the lands of the infidels to be beheaded".
In 1695, an epidemic broke out in Mexico, and the nuns of San Jerónimo also fell victim to it. Referring to Sister Juana, Father Calleja tells us: "Charity was her queenly virtue: if it was not to cook food for them or provide remedies for those who were ill, she did not leave her bedside". She also fell ill. The news of her illness shocked Mexico City. The convent, the viceregal court and the people joined in immense prayer. She died on 17 April 1695. The most illustrious writers of her time attended the Poetic Funeral Mass.
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