Cruz, Juana Inés de la | Lisa Rabin (essay date 1995)
Lisa Rabin (essay date 1995)
SOURCE: "The Blasón of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: Politics and Petrarchism in Colonial Mexico," in Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, Vol. LXXII, No. 1, January, 1995, pp. 28-39.
[In the following essay, Rabin discusses the literary and political implications of Cruz's use of the blasón in her poetry.]
The frontispiece of the Fama y obras pósthumas (1700), one of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz's first published collections of verse, proclaims her Petrarchan poetry as the vehicle of eloquence in a foreign land. The official pillars of empire, the plus ultra of Castile and Aragon, have been converted into a knight of 'Europa' and an Indian of 'América' to embrace the primitive regions of Mexico. And written on the cornices of the plus ultra is a revealing invitation to Sor Juana's readers: Mulierem forte(m) q(u)is inveniet / Procul et de ultimis finib(us)? Or, 'Who will...
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