History and its Limits: Tolstoy’s War and Peace

By Kathryn A. Kopple

Famously, Henry James detested historical novels.  At best, he regarded them as derivative, and at worst, he thought them cheap.  The historical novelist appropriates materials from sources far removed from first-hand experience.  The historical novelist works not with character, which is for James the novel’s true subject, but types.  The historical novelist never knows when to quit and instead produces cumbersome narratives better used as doorstops.  He spared no one his withering appraisal of historical fiction.  Leo Tolstoy—to whom the word genius is ascribed with such regularity it begins to feel as if it were part of his name (the Genius Leo Tolstoy)—did not escape James’ cudgel.  For James, Tolstoy was guilty on all charges.  He also committed one other unpardonable error. He allowed himself as a writer to be constrained by a concern peculiar to historical novels:  fidelity to his sources.  Historical realism, for James, is the enemy of artistic freedom.

This is not a mere quarrel over two different approaches to literature.  Tolstoy is a writer who does not allow himself the luxury of imagining that freedom exists in an essentially unfree society.  Individuals may enjoy greater or lesser privileges, but privilege is not freedom.  On the contrary, privilege is exhibit A in demonstrating the extent to which individuals are not the masters of their own existence.  In his major works—War and Peace and Anna Karenina—Tolstoy does not deviate from his worldview.  Even the most influential men—those who appear to wield absolute power over the fate of nations—are not free.  In War and Peace, Tolstoy takes it upon himself to demonstrate how no-one escapes this rule, not even legendary figures such as Napoleon Bonaparte.  

In the 19^th century, Napoleon Bonaparte survived the maelstrom that followed in the aftermath of the French Revolution, seized power, and declared himself the emancipator of his country—and then of Europe.  Of course, he had his enemies.  But, he had far more supporters.   The conclusion drawn by historians goes something like this:  Napoleon was a great hero.  He did what great heroes do:  change history.  He could do all this because he was exceptional, and only the most exceptional persons know what to do with power.  Use it.  Tolstoy understood how such conclusions could be arrived at:  unchecked power is freedom at its absolute limit. But, Tolstoy would have none of it. He understood freedom defined by absolute power as abhorrent as well as false. He thought it the baldest lie.

Bonaparte had been dead less than a decade when Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was born in 1828.  By the time Tolstoy publishes War and Peace (1869), he was an aristocrat in his mid-thirties, married, who has put behind him, by all accounts, a colorful and checkered youth.  He had fought in both the Chechen and Crimean wars.  His writings about his war experiences, together with other works, earned Tolstoy the reputation of being one of Russia’s most gifted writers.  It is in War and Peace that Tolstoy offers up a portrait of Bonaparte that is contrary to the legend of the great man.  For Tolstoy, there are no great men.  And not simply because great men, like all humans, have flaws, but because historians are either enthralled or duped by the very idea of greatness.  When Tolstoy attacks Napoleon, he does not do so out of a particular disdain for the ruler (although, certainly Tolstoy had no love for the emperor).  He seeks to exorcize the spirit of Romanticism that deifies people to the detriment of all rationale thought.

But, there is a long process of initiation before readers of War and Peace can appreciate the extent to which Tolstoy struggled with the concept of freedom. The author lived during times of reform and repression. Serfdom had not yet been ended but there were attempts, not to mention significant setbacks, to reform. Reformists from the upper-classes fought for greater liberty and were put down by the tsar. Foundational institutions—marriage, for example—were riven by hypocrisy and void of virtues. And then there was the Church, with its self-proclaimed power over heaven and earth, which instilled superstition in the masses while doing very little to improve the conditions of poor. Everywhere Tolstoy looked, people were punished for thinking for themselves. War and Peace addresses this dilemma on a scale that can only be described as epic.

Tolstoy is such a good writer at creating convincing characters and story lines—extraordinarily good—that it can be tempting to become irritated with his habit of inserting exposition where the reader expects the narrative to chug along on its tracks, as if it were a well-oiled machine. And important authors have criticized him for his digressions, sermonizing, and belief system. There is a temptation to skip the boring parts of War and Peace, as they say, and get on with the story. But, at a price. War and Peace takes the reader through the military campaigns beginning with the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805 through France’s invasion of Russia in 1812. The war ends with the French army’s retreat after the Battle of Borodino, where some 70,000 lives are lost. The French arrive in Moscow to chaos—much of the city is in flames. The exposition makes it possible for the reader to understand why the beautiful city had to be destroyed in the most objective manner possible. For this task, Tolstoy settles on a detailed description of a dying beehive—and it is but one example of how the author asks us to consider the true complexities of historical events, so much so that the instigator of this destruction can never be named.

Kathryn A. Kopple is the author of Little Velásquez, a novel set in 15th century Spain.

Crossed-Dressed Lovers: Omphale and Hercules

By Kathryn A. Kopple

Omphale is best known as the woman who subjugated the mighty Hercules. After all the recent fuss in the media about fantasies of female oppression—er, “submission”—it may be salutary to consider the opposite: a man enslaved to a woman.

Slavery, it must be said, is the far from ideal footing on which to base a relationship. Hercules didn’t exactly take to the idea of bondage but he’d made his bed. He would have to lie in it—for three years (give or take).

After murdering his friend Iphitus and stealing the Delphic tripod, Hercules had a lot on his conscience. Driven by remorse, he sought out an oracle to find out what must be done to redeem himself.  The oracle turned him over to Hermes, who sold him to Omphale, a queen. 

Despite her royal status, Omphale would not have been considered worthy of Hercules.  She was a mere woman. He was a demigod. Hercules slayed monsters, brought scoundrels to justice, and displayed immense courage.  He was the embodiment of the noble warrior. After her husband was gored to death by a bull, Omphale ruled over the kingdom of Lydia in Asia Minor. Greeks had a word for such people, particularly those who hailed from Asia Minor: “barbarians.”  Hercules enslavement to a barbarian queen was a form of public shaming. By his own hand, he had debased himself—and he would have to suffer the consequences. 

Myths evolve over time and the story of Omphale and Hercules is no different. Hercules’ enslavement has its roots in ancient Greek storytelling; it took Roman poets and playwrights to popularize the tale.  Once in Omphale’s possession, our hero becomes the queen’s domestic servant.  He works the loom, holds her mirror—and is forced to wear women’s clothing.  He serves the queen in bed as well.

As lovers, Omphale and Hercules appear to thwart the conventions of power and gender. Omphale is often depicted draped in Hercules’ lion skin and holding his club (his defeat of the Nemean lion being one of his most famous victories).  While a man donning female dress is not unheard of in Greek and Roman culture, Hercules is no doubt one of the more famous heroes to do so.  Many artists have tried to create a true romance from this myth.  Hercules represents the slave bound not only by contract but love. Omphale wields complete power over him, making outrageous and transgressive demands as a way of testing his devotion.

The mistress/slave relationship lives on in cult classics. Readers of Leopold von Sacher Masoch’s Venus in Furs will recognize Severin and Wanda, the gender-bending protagonists of the novel as a variation of the myth of Omphale and Hercules. Readers have observed that it is Severin, the male protagonist, who brings out the dominatrix in Wanda—thus confirming the predominant belief that women are deeply uncomfortable in positions of power. They find release in fantasies of subjugation because it coincides with entrenched ideas about femininity. But Wanda is far from conflicted. Her role in Masoch’s narrative, which is three parts fairy tale, comedy, and erotic fantasy, is to redeem Severin.  She must bring him back into line with societal norms—and to that end, has him yoked to plow and thrown into a pit. Given Severin’s persistence, Wanda is forced to go to extremes to beat some sense into him.  When she runs off with another man, Severin decides he has had enough.  

Omphale is the prototype for women who must save their men from erotic impulses that defy societal norms. She represents the barbarous side of Hercules’ nature that must be tamed.  When he has been sufficiently restored to his senses, he moves on—leaving Omphale behind and their child. (Women take note.)

What are we to make of this story of these two star-crossed, cross-dressed lovers? Social convention and morality trumps sexual abandon, that much is certain. And yet, Omphale and Hercules, with their exchange of masculine and feminine roles, serve as a reminder that normative conceptions of gender, while serving male interests, may be subverted if women so desire.

As for love?  The heart wants what it wants. 

Kathryn A. Kopple, author of Little Velásquez, a novel set in 15th century Spain.

Cures and Curses: Dwarfs, Imagined Curses

By Kathryn A. Kopple

A cultural history of dwarfs presents the challenge of a scarcity of information. The bibliography on dwarfs is far from extensive and openly contested.  A paragraph here, a scholarly article there, a handful of books does not a history make.  In place of history, we have a mixture of fact and fiction.  For centuries, dwarfs have been co-opted via the popular imagination for the production of myth.  All myths imply a cultural viewpoint, perceptions that stand in for reality.  The object of myth, if it is prevalent enough, comes to form part of our collective experiences.  Didn’t we grow up with dwarfs? Hey ho, hey ho.  Don’t we have a sense from tales and movies that we would recognize a dwarf if we met one?  Surely, as a society, we are no strangers to dwarfs?  Aren’t all dwarfs more or less alike? A culture in search of an embodiment for its fascinations with the body has repeatedly looked at dwarfs to satisfy its assumptions.

     To locate dwarfs in history, we begin with image itself.  The article “Dwarfs in the Arts: Diego Velázquez” informs us that before written material appeared about dwarfs they could be found in artwork.  Apparently, “(I)mages of dwarfs were plentiful in the ancient world.” The article goes on to list the ancient cultures, east and west, old world and new world, that etched dwarfs into pottery, painted dwarfs on stone and canvas, entombed dwarfs with royalty. Frankly, it’s not much to go on. How do we know that we are looking at dwarfs? The very term “dwarf” as it originates in Old English denotes simply a “very short human being.” How short is short? Again, assumptions come into play—or interfere as the case may be.  We come to these images with definite notions of what “dwarf” signifies—our own cultural sense of smallness.  We draw very quick conclusions.  If a very short person is carved in stone that person must been a dwarf.  In all of this—call it “projection”—we create a semblance of history that may apply to dwarfs but to any ancient Egyptian considered uniquely small.   Point being that semblances may be deceiving. 

     During the Renaissance, dwarfs appear to take on a greater corporeal presence in European society.  We hear more about the “court dwarf,” those persons who were valued by royalty precisely because of their diminutive stature.  Living at court, in palatial splendor, hardly secured the dwarfs’ position in society.  They were victims in the ignominious history of human trafficking: nobility purchased dwarfs to keep or trade, prize or disdain, tolerate or eliminate.  However much dwarfs may have been coveted they were servants, and certainly no better off than slaves.   Some dwarfs, and they were the exception, became companions or secretaries. The majority spent their time at court as buffoons. 

     The close association between the various traditions of the carnival and dwarfs brought them into disfavor with religious authority and made them targets of superstitions of all kinds.  During the reign of Isabel I of Castile, a friar lamented the money spent on costumes for dwarfs; the clownish attire only made them look crazier—something the friar regarded as a waste with respect to persons who were already “locos” or lunatics.

     Disparaged though dwarfs may have been there is a lacuna of information with respect to these madcaps.  The household records of Isabella I mention a dwarf named Velasquillo, who served at the behest of Ferdando the Catholic.  We know nothing of where he came from; what his full name was; or how long he remained at court.  In fiction, he is the protagonist of my novel Little Velásquez which is set in 15^th century Spain, during the thirteen years leading up to the conquest of Granada.

     In writing Little Velásquez, I made use of the chronicles and historical accounts pertaining to the era.  The chronicles are often confused with history when, in truth, they are hagiography.  History attempts to provide us with a verifiable record of the past; hagiography is an idealized version of the past.  Confusing the two leads to regrettable misconceptions—as to treat hagiography as history is to perpetuate myth.  The very word “chronicle” should inspire a healthy skepticism.   Little enough information exists about dwarfs without further muddling the facts.  I could point to the following: “… Frances de Zúñiga , one of the most famous Spanish dwarfs…  commonly referred to by the diminutive Francesillo.”  Except that we will never know whether Zúñiga or anyone else referred to him as Francesillo.  A diminutive does not a dwarf make.  Sources indicate that Adolfo de Castro bestowed the nickname Francesillo on Zúñiga, the author of a burlesque chronicle of Charles V, in a prologue to an 1855 edition. By then,  the jester had been dead for three centuries.

     Why should an oversight such as the one above matter?  Because the historian—despite calling  Zúñiga brilliant—asserts that he could be wicked and cruel.  He made verbal “assaults” on other people’s appearances that may have stemmed from his own “sensitivity about his body.” Given the predominance of physical humor of the most scatological kind prevalent during the 16^th century,  Zúñiga can hardly be treated as an exception, much less an exceptionally disturbed dwarf.

      A far more hair-raising story of a dwarf can be found in a critical history of Spanish literature.   It falls into the category of tales about devious dwarfs.  A dwarf arrives on mule at the palace of a king. His appearance among the fair nobility provokes disgust.  From his head to his toes, he is a grotesque figure.  Based on his appearance alone, the dwarf should be cast out. The benevolent king instead makes the dwarf his guest.  The dwarf feigns gratitude when, all the while, he is plotting mischief.  He sets his sights on the comely queen, entering her bedchamber at night. The queen fends him off and sends him packing minus a tooth. The king summons the dwarf, whereupon he learns the queen is the reason for his injuries.  This arouses the king’s suspicions since he also learns that the struggle took place in the queen’s chamber.  A trap is laid for the queen.  The next day, while the king is at Mass, the dwarf steals into the queen’s room again.  They are discovered by the king.  For the sin of adultery, the king decides that the queen must be burned at the stake.  She is stripped to her camisole in preparation for her ordeal.  The king decides that she is too pure and beautiful to have had carnal relations with a dwarf.  She is spared. The dwarf is not so fortunate.  He is burned to death—destined for an eternity in hell. 

     The stigma cast upon dwarfs has a long tradition, one in which the Church has played no small part.  Dwarfs subvert the natural order of things, and not only in appearance but by their temperament and behavior.   As with itinerant actors, those who made a name performing in public, dwarfs make fools of themselves and others. They live by their wits. They embody irreverence, bawdiness, lewdness, debauchery, so on and so forth.  Small in stature dwarfs are ever associated with excess. Hardly surprising, then, to read in a history of the “juglares” or minstrels  a tale in which a “boy” in the service of the King of Galicia was castigated by none other than the Almighty for making a joke about a saint.  From the famous portraits by Diego de Velázquez to the “Song of the Dwarf” by Rainer Marie Rilke, dwarfs embody the fallen condition of humankind. Velázquez’s dwarfs are among God’s unfortunates; they are to be pitied lest God find us unworthy of his mercy.  The anguish expressed in Rilke’s poem is an elegant expression of acute moral self-abasement.  

      Or we could do just as well to consider the words of a man and poet—one of the great geniuses of his times—who is often and misleadingly called a dwarf:  “Honor and shame from no condition rise.  Act well your part: there all the honor lies.”  Alexander Pope

Kathryn A. Kopple is the author of Little Velásquez, a novel set in 15th century Spain.              

                               

Great Buildings: The Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, the Temple of the Sun, and the Transmission of History

By Kathryn A. Kopple

Quirkancha, the temple or house of the Sun was a site of religious worship in the imperial city of Cuzco during the time of the Inca Empire.  The myth of its founding is narrated by the 16^th century historian known as the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega (12 April 1539 – 23 April 1616).  According to Garcilaso, on a hill called Huanacuari, to the south of the city, the Inca king and his wife thrust a golden wand into the earth, where it disappeared into the ground.  The couple took this as a sign that their deity wished for them to remain there.  People were gathered from all four directions, and were told “that their father the Sun had sent them from the sky to be teachers and benefactors (43-44)."

To fully appreciate this foundational myth as it has been handed down to us by the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, we must understand that the Incas did not have a written language; they developed a system of mnenomic devices employing ropes and knots, or quipus. As the illegitimate son of an Inca princess and a Spanish conquistador, Garcilaso (whose birth name was Gómez Suárez de Figueroa) was taught to read and write in Latin and Castilian, and received a thoroughly Catholic education.

Garcilaso traveled to Spain as a young man to further his education with the expectation that he would receive his share of his father’s inheritance.  Met with frustration and unable to overcome the stigma of his bastardy, he nonetheless made his home in Andalucia, where he would embark on a course of study that produced one of Spanish America’s most notable works: the Royal Commentaries of the Inca and General History of Peru.  In the words of translator Harold V. Livermore: “The Royal Commentaries of the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega is one of the first American classics—that is, one of the earliest books about America by an American, that has generally been accepted as a major work of the Spanish language… and if there are earlier authors in America, none of them can genuinely said to be a figure on the great stage of Spanish letters (xv).”  Garcilaso’s Royal Commentaries is still admired to this day for its graceful style, and as a relevant source text of Spanish-American literature.

As a baptized Indian, one of mixed heritage—and a boy who spent his early years under Spanish colonial rule—Garcilaso was profoundly aware of the tragedies that domination by Europeans had wrought upon his mother’s people.  What he most feared was that, with the suppression of Inca culture, his mother’s world would pass into oblivion.  He writes:  “…the name Peru, so famous in the world and rightly famous, since it has filled the whole world with gold and silver, pearls and precious stones.  But because it [the name] was imposed by accident and is not one they [the Incas] have themselves given, the native Indians of Peru, though it is seventy-two years since it was conquered, have not taken this word into their mouths… They used to call it Tahuantinsuyu, meaning ‘the four quarters of the world (17).'”  This need to correct and educate the Spaniards with regards to the territory they arbitrarily called “Peru” is evident throughout the Royal Commentaries. With the onslaught of colonization came the perils of obliteration, which  Garcilaso no doubt found personally unbearable but a loss of enormous cultural consequence to the rulers of his homeland.  He hoped that his history would result in better conditions for the indigenous people of the region. 

Although widely respected, the Inca Garcilaso is also a controversial figure.  Scholars have stressed that, because Garcilaso spent most of his life in Spain, his history relies heavily on secondary accounts.   Garcilaso does not hide this fact in his work—comparing his version with those of Spanish chroniclers.  He has also been criticized for catering to the colonizers by presenting an idealized view of the Incas as the spiritual counter-part to Christianity.  In keeping with the European Renaissance tradition in which Garcilaso was schooled, he naturally drew upon tropes that would be familiar to Europeans.  We do find in his telling of foundational myths constant references to the “the Sun, our Father.”  Rhetoric of this sort would not be taken as pagan by the European humanists but in keeping with the assimilation of Greco-Roman culture to Catholic theology. There is little doubt with whom Garcilaso’s sympathies lay.  When he writes on the “naming” and “discovery” of Peru, he does not shy away from asserting the degree to which the colonizers made a mess of things.

So what did the Temple of the Sun mean to the peoples of Tahuantinsuyu according to Garcilaso?  Namely, that it was the center of worship for the Inca Empire—a temple built to glorify their god.  The Spaniards looted the original temple, robbing it of its splendor, but the foundation of Quirkancha remains, on which the Dominican Convent of Santo Domingo was built.   For Garcilaso, the temple would always be a sacred monument—which he believed could be saved for posterity only by writing his history of the Inca empire.

NOTES

Garcilaso de la Vega, el Inca, Royal Commentaries of the Incas and General History of Peru (Part One), trans. Harold V. Livermore, University of Texas Press, Austin, 1966. 

Kathryn A. Kopple is the author of Little Velásquez, a novel set in 15th century Spain.  

New & Noteworthy: April 18

Piers Alexander joins Unusual Historicals this month as its newest contributor. Learn more about Piers and his novel, THE BITTER TRADE, at piersalexander.com. Welcome, Piers!

• Kathryn Kopple will be reading from LITTLE VELÁSQUEZ at Main Point Books, Bryn Mawr, Pa., along with two of her favorite authors, on April 24th at 7 pm. For more information, see the event's homepage. 

• Ginger Myrick has released the cover art and blurb for her upcoming release INSATIABLE: A MACABRE HISTORY OF FRANCE, a work of alternate history. INSATIABLE is the story of Marie Antoinette as you've never seen her before! See the cover and get all the details at Ginger's website. 

• Piers Alexander's debut novel, THE BITTER TRADE, launched as an ebook with a reading at the (rather raucous) London Book Fair ALLi party. The book won the PEN Factor and will be launched in UK bookshops in June 2014. 

England, 1688. Ambitious Calumny Spinks is a redheaded, half-French outsider. When his father’s violent past resurfaces, Cal becomes a London coffee racketeer. His ambition and talent for mimicry pull him into a conspiracy against the King himself.

"Dazzling, playful" - Rebecca Swift 

THE BITTER TRADE is available for pre-order at Amazon UK.

• Kim Rendfeld’s THE ASHES OF HEAVEN'S PILLAR will be published August 28, 2014. For more about her story, in which a medieval mother must grapple with why her gods allowed the destruction of a sacred monument and how she will protect her children after losing everything, see the announcement on her blog, Outtakes of a Historical Novelist. Kim also wrote a guest essay at Reading the Past, where she discussed how historical fiction fills a gap when it comes to showing history through the eyes of medieval pagans and peasants.

• Lisa J. Yarde's SULTANA: A NOVEL OF MOORISH SPAIN (Sultana: Book 1) is free on Kindle April 17 - 19. Get caught up on the series before the fourth book, SULTANA: THE BRIDE PRICE, makes its debut in May. See Lisa's website for more details.

In thirteenth-century Moorish Spain, the realm of Granada is in crisis. The union of Fatima, granddaughter of the Sultan of Granada, with the Sultan’s nephew Faraj has fractured the nation. A bitter civil war escalates and endangers both Fatima and Faraj’s lives. All her life, Fatima has sheltered in lavish palaces where danger has never intruded, until now. A precocious child and the unwitting pawn of her family, she soon learns how her marriage may determine her future and the fate of Granada. Her husband Faraj has his own qualms about their union. At a young age, he witnessed the deaths of his parents and discovered how affluence and power offers little protection against indomitable enemies. Guilt and fears plague him. Determined to carve his own destiny, Faraj struggles to regain his lost inheritance and avenge his murdered family. Throughout the rugged frontiers of southern Spain, the burgeoning Christian kingdoms in the north and the desert states of North Africa, Fatima and Faraj survive ruthless murderers and intrigues. They unite against common enemies bent on destroying the last Moorish dynasty. While Fatima and Faraj establish a powerful bond, the atmosphere of deceit creates opportunities for mistrust and tests their love.

Female Pioneers: Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (12 November 1651 – 17 April 1694)

By Kathryn A. Kopple

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (Sister Joan Agnes of the Cross) was baptized on December 2, 1651 in what was then known as New Spain (or Mexico). She was entered in the registry as a “daughter of the church.” In other words, illegitimate. Her given name was Juana de Asbaje y Ramírez. She was the off-spring of a Spanish captain whereas her mother was criolla, a descendant of peninsular Spaniards. Raised by her mother’s family, she had access to tutors and numerous books. She could read by the age of three and write by the age of six. In 1669, she entered the Hieronymite order. Sor Juana remained there until her death while tending to victims of the plague. She was forty-three.

Legend.  Sor Juana incarnates various tropes: proto-Spanish-American woman of letters, Sapphic Spanish-American, Baroque Spanish-American poet, Spanish-American feminist. Sor Juana endures because she literally embodies in her person two worlds: the Spanish Golden Age and the oppressive realities of New Spain. Educated, brilliant, and intellectually curious, she made a reputation for herself among the elite that then governed the Spanish colony. Success of this scope could scarcely have been predicted for a woman born into a rigid caste-system: one in which she was at a triple disadvantage due to her gender, bastardy, and lack of financial independence.

Legacy. Sor Juana authored sonnets, plays, and composed the masterpiece “Primero sueño" (First Dream). To understand what she accomplished in the poem requires a comprehensive knowledge of Spanish baroque poetry, as well as Scripture and mythological references.  Numerous passages astonish, delight and demonstrate considerable intelligence. The poem is an extended dream which narrates the soul’s quest for wisdom unfettered by the body. Unfortunately, the corporeal chains that bind do not offer the soul complete freedom, which would naturally result in death. The final passage, in which the subject at last awakens at daybreak, is ambiguous. The soul, having exhausted all intuition and reason, withdraws back into the body without having attained its goal. Octavio Paz, who has written extensively on sor Juana, construes this as a paradox: “Primero sueño” is a visionary poem that results in “non-vision,” a spiritual experiment that breaks with the charismatic tradition (482).    

“Primero sueño” might have earned the admiration of scholars past and present as a skillful imitation "Soledades” (Solitudes) by the great Spanish poet Luis de Gongora had sor Juana not closed “Primero sueño” with the following: “…quedando a la luz más cierta/el mundo iluminado, y yo despierta.” A loose translation: “… the light becomes more lucid/the world illuminated, and I awaken.” The final line is self-referential, revealing that the speaker is female.

Hence this long poem, nine hundred and seventy-five lines, is regarded as one of her most personal. The poet not only writes of the soul but speaks from her own soul. As Paz states: “… sor Juana is ahead of her time: there is nothing comparable, in the 17th century, in women’s literature… in New Spain, a closed, peripheral society under the control of two jealous powers: the Catholic Church y the Spanish Monarchy (400).”

Scandal:  The Bishop of Puebla requests that Sor Juana write a response to a sermon attributed to the Portuguese Jesuit Antonio de Vierya.  She does as asked, and the work known as “La carta atenagórica” (Athenagorical Letter) is given to the bishop, who not only publishes sor Juana’s argument but publicly responds to the nun under the name sor Filotea. Three months later, sor Juana addresses sor Filotea’s criticisms in the “Respuesta” (Response), in which she defends herself against accusations of self-interest, arrogance, and ambition. “Lust for knowledge,” a phrase used by sor Filotea, must have alarmed her, as it suggests an unhealthy attachment to the humanist scholars sor Juana draws upon in her work. Sor Juana repeatedly asserts that her passion for learning, which came to her at an early age, is a God-given gift, and as such pure. She further states that she never sought to study in order to write (much less teach). Her writings were done at the request of others.  She makes a passing reference to “El sueño,” stating that she did indeed compose it for her own pleasure.  She reiterates her position that women should be taught to read, and nuns in particular, so they can have access to Scripture and theological writings. In addition, she expresses her dismay over the misunderstanding caused by the “Carta,” and that she wants no quarrel that would cause her to be brought to the attention of the Inquisition.  The “Respuesta” will not be published until after her death, by which time sor Juana will have dismantled her library—said to contain hundreds of books—and devoted herself to charitable causes.

Epiloque:  Sor Juana’s place in Latin American literature cannot be underestimated. Who could fail to admire her investigations into art, philosophy, theology, and science?  Her unflagging intellectual curiosity? Despite all efforts to silence her, it is sor Juana who has had the last word. Her trajectory through Latin American culture has not yet ended, and it will continue as long as we, her readers, engage her life and work.

Notes:

All translations of cited material are mine.

Paz, Octavio, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz o Las trampas de la Fe (Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2000).

Kathryn Kopple is the author of Little Velásquez, a novel set in 15th century Spain