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Juana
By Dave Gutknecht • January 2009

The sky above me is alive with billions of stars, I am humbled and intrigued. The stars are light years away and yet we know about them by analyzing the light they emit. Looking at the two hundred peso note which bears the likeness of Juana de Asbaje, a nun who lived in New Spain over three hundred and fifty years ago, I have the same feeling. Judging from her image on the note she was an attractive woman with a Mona Lisa like smile.  Who was she and what do we know about her?  Let us analyze the light that emanated from this amazing lady.

She was born in 1651 in the city of San Miguel de Nepantla near present day Mexico City. There is some controversy as to whether she was born 1648 or 1651 and as to whether or not she was legitimate. Some sources indicate that her mother may have been part Indian. In any case she grew up on the plantation of her maternal grandfather. She was a child prodigy learning to read and write by the age of three and at the tender age of eight wrote her first poem. They attempted to keep her out of her grandfather’s library and channel her toward the proper pursuits for a young lady such as embroidery, sewing, and cooking but she persisted. She was a voracious reader. She was tutored in Latin and mastered it in only twenty lessons. Upon her grandfather's death she was sent to live with her aunt in Mexico City. Her genius was recognized and at fourteen was sent to live the court of the Viceroy where her charm, intelligence, and wit made her a favorite of the Viceroy and his wife. She remained there for five years before entering a convent at the age of nineteen becoming Juana Inés de la Cruz. Why did she enter a convent when most certainly a suitable marriage could easily have been arranged? After entering the convent attendance at the viceroy’s court was not possible but apparently she was so enchanting that the court came to her. During her time at the convent and the viceroy’s court she wrote one hundred poems, twenty six plays, and thirteen essays. In addition she wrote carols and designed an arch for the arrival of a new viceroy. She lived quite comfortably at the convent and acquired an extensive library and collection of scientific instruments. She wrote several plays in Nahuatl the Indian language of central Mexico. Her work was carried back to Spain and published.

She was an outspoken feminist even before the word had any meaning. She said, “There seems to me no cause for a head to be adorned with hair and naked of learning.” She openly espoused education for women. This was during the time of the Counter Reformation and unconventional thought was not encouraged and often punished. For a time her close friendship with a series of Viceroys shielded her from reprimand but eventually she was attacked in print by the Bishop of Puebla who suggested that she confine her writing to religious topics and to stop secular and scientific endeavourers. Unbelievably she responded with a letter defending her position, as a mere nun it was an argument that she could not win. She submitted to the church and stopped writing; she sold her library to benefit the poor. The light was extinguished. She died when a plague swept across New Spain and all the nuns in her convent succumbed.

Looking at her portrait, an attractive face with the secretive half smile peering out of the clerical garb, it is easy to understand why Juana is a figure of interest. Add her intellectual accomplishments, her strong feminist views, and the Catholic Church during the Counter Reformation and you have the ingredients for a great novel. Her life has inspired several novels including one by Octavia Paz that won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1990. In addition, her life is the depicted in a movie, a play, an opera, and a TV series. So with all this scholarly research do we know her? I think not. She wrote:

Her half smile hides more mysteries than the Mona Lisa’s.

I recall a session I attended at the Friendship Club in Puerto Vallarta, two women read one of Juana’s poems. First a portion was read in Spanish, I did not understand the words but their flow and rhythm were beautiful and held my interest. Then an English translation was read. The logic and ideas presented were crisply, clearly and forcefully expressed and so it went first in Spanish and then in English. The audience sat quietly at its conclusion hoping for more and then broke into applause. A flash of light in the night sky interrupted my reveries, fireworks from the Barceló La Jolla Hotel. It went on for about fifteen minutes illuminating the night sky with color and then it suddenly stopped. So must it have been three hundred and fifty years ago with Juana, a blaze of light and then suddenly it stopped but unlike the fireworks, an afterglow is still visible. Email to a friend

Dave Gutknecht
E-mail: DaveGutk@aol.com

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