ABSTRACT
Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, a prolific poet, dramatist, composer, theologian, and scholar, is recognized as colonial Mexico’s most important writer, despite her limited access to formal education because of her sex. Juana was born in either 1648 or 1651 out of wedlock to a criolla mother and a Spanish father. Her mother raised her on the family’s modest estate outside Mexico City. At age ten, Juana was sent by her mother to live with an aunt in Mexico City. Under the vicereine’s protection, Juana became a celebrated maid-in-waiting at the viceregal court in 1664. Juana chose the latter, knowing that life as a nun would afford her the greatest freedom to pursue her education. By the late 1680s, the institutional church began to scrutinize Sor Juana’s writings and activities. Both a poem and a song that Sor Juana composed are included here as well.
