Synopses & Reviews
Review
"A selection of the Mexican nun's work in excellent versions by Alan Trueblood. It successfully reflects the versatility of Sor Juana, whose styles range from spirited popular lyrics, some incorporating snatches of Nahuatl or Afro-Spanish refrains, to the learned conceits of her full-blown Gongorist manner."
--Edwin Williamson, London Review of Books"[Trueblood] is astonishingly successful at rendering Sor Juana's Baroque complexities and her elusive simplicities."
--Richard Eder, Los Angeles Times Book Review"Sor Juana with her intricate conceits, torrents of imagery and baroque opulence...inspires and challenges Trueblood to transform the Spanish verse forms into contemporary equivalents. He triumphs."
--Robert Taylor, Boston Globe"This anthology projects a masterful vision of Sor Juana. The selection, translations, and commentary are laudable. A voice once silenced is most resonant."
--Edward H. Friedman, Modern Language ReviewReview
A selection of the Mexican nun's work in excellent versions by Alan Trueblood. It successfully reflects the versatility of Sor Juana, whose styles range from spirited popular lyrics, some incorporating snatches of Nahuatl or Afro-Spanish refrains, to the learned conceits of her full-blown Gongorist manner. Edwin Williamson
Review
[Trueblood] is astonishingly successful at rendering Sor Juana's Baroque complexities and her elusive simplicities. London Review of Books
Review
Sor Juana with her intricate conceits, torrents of imagery and baroque opulence...inspires and challenges Trueblood to transform the Spanish verse forms into contemporary equivalents. He triumphs. Richard Eder - Los Angeles Times Book Review
Review
This anthology projects a masterful vision of Sor Juana. The selection, translations, and commentary are laudable. A voice once silenced is most resonant. Robert Taylor - Boston Globe
Synopsis
Here is a new voice--new to us--reaching across a gap of three hundred years. Sor (Sister) Juana In s de la Cruz was acclaimed in her time as "Phoenix of Mexico, America's Tenth Muse"; a generation later she was forgotten. In our century she was rediscovered, her works were reissued, and she is now considered one of the finest Hispanic poets of the seventeenth century. She deserves to be known to English-speaking readers for another reason as well: she speaks directly to our concern for the freedom of women to realize themselves artistically and intellectually.
Her poetry is surprising in its scope and variety. She handled with ease the intricate verse forms of her day and wrote in a wide range of genres. Many of her lyrics reflect the worldliness and wit of the courtly society she moved in before becoming a nun; some, composed to be sung, offer charming glimpses of the native people, their festivities and colorful diversity. Alan Trueblood has chosen, in consultation with Octavio Paz, a generous selection of Sor Juana's writings and has provided an introductory overview of her life and work. The short poems, and excerpts from her play The Divine Narcissus, are accompanied by the Spanish texts on facing pages. Her long philosophical poem, First Dream, is translated in its entirety, as is her famous autobiographical letter to the Bishop of Puebla, which is both a self-defense and a vindication of the right of women to cultivate their minds.
The Anthology was conceived as a companion to the English-language edition of Octavio Paz's magisterial study of Sor Juana. On its own, it will be welcomed as the first representative selection in English of her verse and prose.
About the Author
Alan S. Trueblood, Professor of Hispanic Studies and Comparative Literature, Brown University, is the author of Experience and Artistic Expression in Lope de Vega.Octavio Paz is the author of more than forty columes of poetry and prose.