ABSTRACT
Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz wrote very few sonnets with moral and philosophical content. This chapter paves the way for a richer and more sustained focus on painting and visual representation in Sor Juana. It identifies the limitations of some approaches to Sor Juana's work, especially those framed within a male-centered perspective. The chapter shows that feminist approaches to the philosophical sonnets of Sor Juana were able to build the foundation for a speaking subject with a woman's perspective. It reflects on the category of "philosophical sonnets" and how it has been conceived by the most important editors of Sor Juana's works. The diversity of critical approaches to philosophical sonnet into three distinct categories, beginning with a philological identification of the possible sources of the sonnet and its close ties to the Spanish baroque tradition. The chapter concludes by focusing on the relationships that the sonnet has to early modern conceptions of visual perception, optics, art, and portraiture.
