Customer Reviews

Sor Juana: Or, the Traps of Faith

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book by the Nobel Prize winner Octavio Paz is a great account of the life of one of the best writers of Hispanic literature. Sor Juana created astonishing poems about life, love, and people. It is a pity that only little is known about the facts of her life. As with Shakespeare, must of what we know about her comes from her literary legacy. Octavio Paz is able to solve some of the mystery that surrounds Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz.

This is a balanced, penetrating examination of Sor Juana and the elements that shaped her life. She understood that her passion was the pursuit of knowledge and that she could never fulfill her life's work unless she became a nun. In addition to describing Sor Juana Paz enlightens his readers about the masculine society into which she was born. She was a brave, talented woman who spoke up for what she believed in.

She winds up caught up in the "Traps of Faith" as Paz refers to the traps sprung by her time and lifetime which doomed her to a shortened life-span and an end to her excellant writings from poetry to prose to drama along with an end to her library filled with books and tomes from her time. Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz is inspirational as a poetess in particular and Paz salutes this woman with his hefty biography filling in the blanks as to the influences that surrounded and imbued Sor Juana with her colourful figures and joyous sufferings that inspired her to dig for gold in the mines of the baroque affectations of her time. For SorJuanistas a must have-- and you know who you are-- for those unaquainted with Sor Juana Ines de La Cruz-- you'll find out how much you are missing.

Paz sums up Juana Ines de la Cruz in terms of sexual transference of her present and absent male figures, in Freudian terms (rampant misogynist and debunked theorist), and her infantilism. A genius relegated to a baby and a woman forever haunted by men, who Paz claims initiated a "movement towards maleness" because she would not be prevented from satiating her hunger for books. How can one not wonder if Paz is reducing the woman's genius to one of maleness? How can one say that because she wanted to go to the University and was willing to dress like a man to do so that she wanted to be male (unless one supposes that genius can only be measured in terms of the male gender)? Juana Ines de la Cruz's gender prevented her from the place of learning that she deserved to be more than any man. Why is it so difficult for Senor Paz to consider that Juana Ines de la Cruz was a genius and that her gender was an obstacle ultimately for the men of her time (and perhaps of today)? She endured cultural and religious oppression and soared to heights of intellectual greatness. This was not in response to her illegitimacy. It was in response to her genius.