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Birth
Juana Ramirez de Asbaje was born on the 12th of November in San Miguel Nepantla. She had a criole mother Isabel Ramirez and a Spanish father Pedro Manuel de Asbaje y Vargas-Machuca. After a few years, her father abandoned her and her sisters. Her mother remarried and had more children. -
Typhus
Typhus was first recorded in Mexico in 1655. Typhus fever is a group of diseases caused by bacteria. If the disease is left untreated circulation becomes sluggish and there are spots of gangrene on parts of the body. There were many effects such as pneumonia, kidney failure, delirium, coma, and cardiac failure. -
Childhood
Juana Ines started to read early on in her childhood. She used to hide in the hacienda chapel to read her grandfather's books. She composed her first poem when she was just eight years old. At age eight after her grandfather's death, she was sent to live in Mexico City with her maternal aunt. By the age of thirteen, she was teaching young children Latin and studying Greek logic. She also learned Nahuatl and wrote short poems in that language. -
Decima Musa
In the 17th century, Juana Inés de la Cruz earned the nickname of the Tenth Muse, and her writings spread throughout Hispanic geography. -
Recognition
She wished to disguise herself as a male so she could go to university but was not given permission by her family. She continued to study privately, and, at sixteen, was presented to the court of the Viceroy Marquis de Mancera, where she was admitted to the service of the viceroy’s wife. When she was seventeen, the viceroy assembled a panel of scholars to test her intelligence. The amount of skills and knowledge she displayed became publicly known throughout Mexico. -
Convent
Juana’s reputation and her beauty attracted a great deal of attention. Interested not in marriage but in her studies, Juana entered the Convent of the Discalced Carmelites of St. Joseph, where she remained for a few months. In 1669, at age twenty-one, she entered the Convent of the Order of St. Jérôme -
In the Convent
While living in the convent Sor Juana had her study and library. She was able to talk to many scholars from the court and the university. Her small room was filled with books, scientific instruments, and maps. Besides the writing of poems and plays her studies included music, philosophy, and natural science. -
Los empeños de una casa
It is a comedy of entanglements around the lives of the characters Leonor and Carlos, who must face the complications that arise from the opposition of the brothers Don Pedro and Doña Ana. -
Criticism
Sor Juana was the subject of criticism by her political and religious superiors. When her friends, the Viceroy Marqués de la Laguna and his wife María Luisa, Condesa de Paredes (the subject of a series of Sor Juana’s love poems), left Mexico in 1688, Sor Juana lost much of the protection to which she had been accustomed. -
El divino Narciso
The Divine Narcissus blends the Aztec and Christian religions. Her various carols contain a mix of Nahuatl Hispano-African and Spanish dialects. The divine Narcissus represents Christ. Human Nature appears as a woman searching for her lover, Narcissus. Echo represents fallen nature or evil and is accompanied by Pride and Self-Love. The play is written in verse and divided into five tableaux with fifteen scenes. -
Love is the Greater Labyrinth
Love is the Greater Labyrinth the play follows Teseo (Theseus) as he goes to meet his fate in the jaws of the monstrous Minotaur. Little does he know that his greatest test will come when he escapes one labyrinth and heads straight into the even more disorienting complications of love -
Inundación castálida
Her first play traces to a Greek myth of Pirene's Fountain, the story goes that water nymph Pirene was struck with immense grief over the death of her son, Cenchrias, and she turned to a fountain of tears with her essence which muses traveled to drink her water to get inspiration. -
First Feminist Manifesto
In 1690, a letter of hers that criticized a well-known Jesuit sermon was published without her permission by a person using the pseudonym “Sor Filotea de la Cruz.” Included with her letter was a letter from “Sor Filotea” criticizing Juana. Sor Juana’s reply, the now famous Respuesta a Sor Filotea, has been hailed as the first feminist manifesto, defending, among other things, a woman’s right to education. -
Famous Poems
Hombres necios" ("Foolish Men") published around 1686, accuses men of behaving illogically by criticizing women. Her most significant poem, "Primero sueño" ("First Dream"), published in 1692, is at once personal and universal, recounting the soul's quest for knowledge. -
Penance
The controversy surrounding Sor Juana’s writing and pressure from those around her, including her confessor Núñez de Miranda, resulted in Sor Juana’s forced abjuration. During this time, Sor Juana was required to sell her books as well as all musical and scientific instruments. Sor Juana devoted herself to rigorous penance, giving up all studies and writing. -
Death
In 1695, a typhus plague hit the convent. On April 17, after tending to her fellow sisters, Juana died from the disease around the age of forty-four -
Rename
On July 14, 1945, the Congress of the State of Mexico officially modified the name of San Miguel Nepantla the town where Sor Juana was born to Nepantla de Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. -
University of the Cloister of Sor Juana
In 1975, a group dedicated to the studies of Sor Juana petition President Luis Echeverría to expropriate the building in order to conserve it.It was excavated and explored between 1976 and 1982. Many of the finds are objects related to the daily lives of the nuns that used to live here such as tiles, fountains, drainage systems and water collectors as well as tombs. It is considered a "Patrimonio de la Nación" (National Heritage Site) and is featured on the back of a 200 peso bill. -
200 pesos
Sor Juana is shown in the 200 peso bill for 41 years. -
Quote
«No estudio para saber más, sino para ignorar menos»
I don't study to know more, but to ignore less. -
