Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book. The book presents some essays that offer a corrective, a panorama of approaches to the full range of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz's writings. Each essay provides a historical trajectory of scholarship, while dismantling the iconic stereotypes in which the fame of a major intellectual has been cast and making visible the rich complexity of the writing that earned her renown. Throughout the book, contributions from a historian, an art historian, and a musicologist, as well as literary scholars, represent the interdisciplinary approach necessary for reading the Mexican nun-poet's work in its colonial intellectual context. In her lifetime, Sor Juana owed her literary acclaim not only to her brilliance, but also to the longstanding misogynist exclusion of women from intellectual activity. Amanda Powell brings out elements of Sor Juana's feminist arguments that participate in the querelle des femmes.