Feminist Perspectives on Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz

Called the "Quintessence of the Baroque" and "Bridge to the Enlightenment," Mexican writer and nun Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz has also been celebrated as the "First Feminist of the New World." Feminist Perspectives on Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz fills a gap in the scholarship on Sor Juana by exploring the implications of her feminist staus in literary and cultural terms. Editor Stephanie Merrim's introduction surveys key issues in Sor Juana criticism from a feminist literary perspective and suggests a blueprint for future studies. Essays by Dorothy Schons and Asuncion Lavrin reconstitute essential dimensions or Sor Juana's world, addressing biographical questions about the norms and values of religious life. Moving from social norms to their verbal expression, Josefina Ludmer reads Sor Juana's Respuesta for its stratagems of resistance, and Stehanie Merrim uncovers in Sor Juana's theater the encoded drama of the conflicted creative woman.