Bardiac has challenged us to come up with names of female writers who lived and wrote before 1800. Apparently Bardiac gets a lot of disbelief that a feminist like herself could teach and study the literature of the Shakespearean and early English era, as if no female writers existed before 1800. She’s created this meme as a way of generating both a list and interest in pre-1800 female writers.
Of course, I wanted to participate in Bardiac’s meme because I like to think of myself as a feminist. But being no literary expert, I could not come up with five names off the top of my head, especially since the only one I could think of, Sappho, was already listed. So I did a little internet searching, and in doing so, learned the fascinating story of Juana Ines de la Cruz (1651 – 1695).
De la Cruz was a nun who wrote and ran a literary salon from her convent library in Mexico City in the mid 1600’s. De la Cruz’s literary output was prolific. She wrote poetry, plays, prose, historical vignetes and mythological tales, poems and plays.
Sor Juana, as she is called, was a feminist. According to Wickipedia: By her own account, life in the convent indeed gave her freedoms that she would never have had if she had married, as was expected of respectable women.
In1690 De la Cruz was silenced by the archbishop when criticism she wrote of a famous Jesuit sermon was published without her knowledge. After that time, she wrote no more, and died not long after during an epidemic of the plague.
Here is one of her poems, from an English translation by Michael Smith, from his website.
You Foolish Men
by Juan Inez de la Cruz (translation by Michael Smith)
You foolish men who lay
the guilt on women,
not seeing you’re the cause
of the very thing you blame;
if you invite their disdain
with measureless desire
why wish they well behave
if you incite to ill.
You fight their stubbornness,
then, weightily,
you say it was their lightness
when it was your guile.
In all your crazy shows
you act just like a child
who plays the bogeyman
of which he’s then afraid.
With foolish arrogance
you hope to find a Thais
in her you court, but a Lucretia
when you’ve possessed her.
What kind of mind is odder
than his who mists
a mirror and then complains
that it’s not clear.
Their favour and disdain
you hold in equal state,
if they mistreat, you complain,
you mock if they treat you well.
No woman wins esteem of you:
the most modest is ungrateful
if she refuses to admit you;
yet if she does, she’s loose.
You always are so foolish
your censure is unfair;
one you blame for cruelty
the other for being easy.
What must be her temper
who offends when she’s
ungrateful and wearies
when compliant?
But with the anger and the grief
that your pleasure tells
good luck to her who doesn’t love you
and you go on and complain.
Your lover’s moans give wings
to women’s liberty:
and having made them bad,
you want to find them good.
Who has embraced
the greater blame in passion?
She who, solicited, falls,
or he who, fallen, pleads?
Who is more to blame,
though either should do wrong?
She who sins for pay
or he who pays to sin?
Why be outraged at the guilt
that is of your own doing?
Have them as you make them
or make them what you will.
Leave off your wooing
and then, with greater cause,
you can blame the passion
of her who comes to court?
Patent is your arrogance
that fights with many weapons
since in promise and insistence
you join world, flesh and devil.
All my male blog readers, don’t get your drawers all in a huff. This poem does not necessarily reflect the views of this blog author about men (although I can think of a man or two to whom it does apply. You know who you are…) Having been raised Catholic, and taught by nuns for much of my early life, I just find it fascinating that this came from the pen of a 17th century nun. She’s almost a feminine counterpart to Shakespeare, the way she writes about the conflicts between the sexes.
Here’s another poem by Sor Juana, apparently written in response to a man who questioned the legitimacy of her birth:
Tonic for a Pompous Ass
by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
Not to have an honest father
would be shameful, I’d agree,
if I had made my father rather
than my father making me.
Your mother, so compassionate,
saw to it that you’d succeed
a host of father candidates
so you could claim the one you need.
Sor Juan was not only smart, she was funny!
Here’s a website with lots of information about Sor Juana. Encyclopedia Brittanica also has a nice entry on her life.
Thanks, Bardiac, for posting your meme. I learned something.
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, painting by Miguel Cabrera, c. 18th century; in the National Archivo Iconografico, S.A./Corbis. Category: Considerations.
In January, The Storm Theatre in Manhattan performed De La Cruz’s play House of Desires. What was really interesting to me was how entertaining the play was even though it was written hundreds of years ago.
Hi tbtam,
Thanks for contributing! I really like the morph to really talking about Sor Juana and posting some of her work in translation. Now I’m wondering if my not so wonderful Spanish would be good enough to read her in the original!
I’m totally blown away by how many people are contributing, and trying to pull things together for a fuller post soon!
Sam, you cracked me up. Of COURSE it’s interesting! I hear that Shakespeare guy wrote like 400 years ago and some people actually still find HIM entertaining! (teasing you, Sam. Old stuff rocks my socks.)
What about Murasaki, author of the Tales of Genjii? Can’t remember what century she lived exactly, but I’m thinking 5th… Japan…
Bardiac: Shakespeare? I’ve heard of him! He lived in LA, right?
In all seriousness, you make a great point. I don’t know what I was thinking. 🙂
American Women Writers Pre 1800s:
1650s, Anne dudley Bradstreet publishes *The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America, written in “the New World,” bestseller in 17th-Century London.
Mary Rowlandson, 1682 published *Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson*
1700 Sarah Friske *A Confession of Faith*
1746 Lucy Terry, first African American poet.
Phillis Wheatley published poetry in the late 1700s
Mercy Otis Warren, late 1700s, playwright, poet, historian
Hannah Adams (1755-1831) called first professional woman writer in US, wrote *Alphabetical Compendium of the Various Sects*.
Sarah Wentworth Morton is considered the American Sappho
1790 Judith Sargent Murray published essay “On the Equality of the Sexes.”
Also late 1700s Ana Eliza Bleecker (poet, short stories) and Hannah webster Foster, novelist.
MainMama:
Well, if you were trying to make me feel like a complete illiterate, you succeeded.
Seriously, very impressive list. I forwarded your response on the Bardiac, who you should visit, you would like her website.
Wonderful choice of poems!
Thank you for expanding my world.
Checked out her site and it is great. Have you seen how long her list is now? I love it! Wasn’t trying to make you feel illiterate…just have a good reference book, that’s all. I didn’t say I’d read ’em!
ACE Theatre (in NW Houston, TX) will present Zacarias’ “The Sins of Sor Juana” from Jan. 16 – Feb.1,2009. A summary that I’ve read of this play says that its subject matter is a five-year, undocumented period in Juana’s life when she was at court. So the play is less biography than fiction.