Synopses & Reviews
[The Answer] is eloquent, sardonic, learned and, particularly in its autobiographical part, of great freshness.”The Times Literary Supplement
One of the landmarks of Renaissance literature and . . . in the history of intellectual freedom. . . . This is essential reading.”Stephen Greenblatt, best-selling author and professor
Recommended for informed readers.”Library Journal
Expanded to include fresh translations, an updated bibliography, and the letter that provoked the writing of The Answer, this new edition of the bilingual, critical bestseller provides the most accurate translations of works by the iconic seventeenth-century Mexican nun Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz.
Review
"[
The Answer] is eloquent, sardonic, learned and, particularly in its autobiographical part, of great freshness." -
The Times Literary Supplement"[The Answer], which includes a biography, bibliography, and chronology, renders the work accessible and fascinating to modern readers." -Ms. Magazine
"Of the several editions available, this one alone focuses its analysis on the issue of gender. Recommended for informed readers." -Library Journal
Synopsis
Nonfiction. Literary Criticism. Latino/Latina Studies. Poetry. Translated from the Spanish by Electa Arenal and Amanda Powell. Expanded to include fresh translations, an updated bibliography, and the letter that provoked the writing of The Answer, this new edition of the bilingual, critical bestseller provides the most accurate translations of works by the iconic seventeenth-century Mexican nun Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz. "[THE ANSWER] is eloquent, sardonic, learned and, particularly in its autobiographical part, of great freshness"--The Times Literary Supplement.
Synopsis
Known as the first feminist of the Americas, the Mexican nun Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz enjoyed an international reputation as one of the great lyric poets and dramatists of her time. While earlier translators have ignored Sor Juana's keen awareness of gender, this volume brings out her own emphasis and diction, and reveals the remarkable scholarship, subversiveness, and even humor she drew on in defense of her cause.
This expanded, bilingual edition combines new research and perspectives on an inspired writer and thinker. It includes the fully annotated primary text, The Answer/La Respuesta (1691), which is Sor Juana's impassioned response to years of attempts by church officials to silence her; the letter that ultimately provoked the writing of The Answer; an expanded selection of poems; an updated bibliography; and a new preface.
Synopsis
Defiant writing by the first feminist of the Americas--the Mexican nun Sor Juana In s de la Cruz--in response to the church officials that tried to silence her.
Known as the first feminist of the Americas, the Mexican nun Sor Juana In s de la Cruz enjoyed an international reputation as one of the great lyric poets and dramatists of her time. The Answer/La Respuesta (1691) is is Sor Juana's impassioned response to years of attempts by church officials to silence her. While earlier translators have ignored Sor Juana's keen awareness of gender, this volume brings out her own emphasis and diction, and reveals the remarkable scholarship, subversiveness, and even humor she drew on in defense of her cause.
This expanded, bilingual edition combines new research and perspectives on an inspired writer and thinker. It includes the fully annotated primary text responding to the church officials; the letter that ultimately provoked the writing of The Answer; an expanded selection of poems; an updated bibliography; and a new preface.
Synopsis
New materials in the classic bilingual literary and critical edition of extraordinary Mexican 17th-century feminist nun.
About the Author
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648/51-1695), a Mexican nun, was a brilliant poet, playwright, and essayist whose persistent defense of the intellectual rights of women brought her increasingly into conflict with church officials, who repeated tried to silence her. Sor Juana died by taking care her sister nuns during a plague in April 1695.
Electa Arenal, professor emerita of Hispanic and Women's Studies (City University of New York), is a translator and specialist in Hispanic monastic women's culture. Listed in Feminists Who Changed America, Arenal's fourth co-authored book, an illustrated, critical edition of Sor Juana's Neptuno alegórico, is forthcoming from Editorial Cátedra, in Spain.
Amanda Powell, award-winning poet and translator, teaches Latin American and Spanish literature and literary translation at the University of Oregon. Powell has published essays on: 16th- and 17th-century Spanish and Colonial Latin American women writers; convent writings; Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz; the "boom" in women's love poetry across 17th century Europe; and literary translation.