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“Heaven and Earth Conspire”: Grace and Nature in Sor Juana's The Divine Narcissus
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2019
Abstract
This essay highlights the dynamic theology of nature and grace expressed within The Divine Narcissus by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1651–95). Inspired by thinkers such as Augustine and Bernard of Clairvaux and, later in her life, an emphasis on the Immaculate Conception, she details an aesthetic relationship between grace and nature: human nature is created to reflect, in grace, the perfect beauty of the incarnate Son of God. Moreover, by securing positive roles for the contributions of women and for indigenous Mexican religious devotion, she highlights the way in which this dynamic between nature and grace recovers the authentic voice of the least in society—those whose voices have been unjustly suppressed by violent domination.
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References
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27 de la Cruz, OC, 2:14–17, 39–42, 71–74, 94–98, 314–16. Two are translated in de la Cruz, Juana Inés, A Sor Juana Anthology (hereafter Ant.), trans. Trueblood, Alan S. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988), 124–29Google Scholar. See also Bokser, “Sor Juana's Divine Narcissus,” 233.
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29 See de la Cruz, SW, 80–83 (Loa 4.276–79, 321–29, 348–53, 368–73).
30 Ibid., 89–95 (de la Cruz, DN 1.1.1–155).
31 Ibid., 94 (de la Cruz, DN 1.1.141–45).
32 de la Cruz, OC, 297 (no. 183). See also de González, Ester Gimbernat, “Speaking through the Voice of Love: Interpretation as Emancipation,” in Feminist Perspectives on Sor Juana Inés de La Cruz, ed. Merrim, Stephanie (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1991), 170–72Google Scholar.
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34 de la Cruz, Ant., 188.
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39 Checa, “El divino Narciso y la redención del lenguaje,” 202–03. He quotes Freccero, John, “The Fig Tree and the Laurel: Patrarch's Poetics,” in Literary Theory/Renaissance Texts, eds. Parker, Patricia A. and Quint, David (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), 27Google Scholar.
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41 Ibid., 98 (de la Cruz, DN 1.2.215–18, 232–40).
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46 de la Cruz, SW, 97 (de la Cruz, DN 1.2.197–98); see also 93 (de la Cruz, DN 1.1.108–11).
47 Ibid., 166 (de la Cruz, DN 5.16.2054–98). See Gonzalez, Sor Juana, 75.
48 de la Cruz, SW, 123–27 (de la Cruz, DN 3.7.1105–12, 1133–48, 1214–17).
49 What Sarah Boss says about Suárez seems also to hold true for Sor Juana: his “optimism about the human condition corresponds to his high Mariology.” Boss, “Union with God,” 66.
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52 Merrim, “Narciso desdoblado,” 113; Parker, “The Calderonian Sources of El divino Narciso by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz,” 269.
53 de la Cruz, SW, 141–51 (de la Cruz, DN 4.12); see also 154 (de la Cruz, DN 4.13.1781–85).
54 Ibid., 166 (de la Cruz, DN 5.16.2111–14).
55 Bokser, “Sor Juana's Divine Narcissus,” 243.
56 See her Devotional Exercises and Athenagoric Letter: de la Cruz, SW, 191–92, 233–34, 237, 239.
57 Ibid., 166–67 (de la Cruz, DN 5.16.2132–34); cf. 131, 151 (de la Cruz, DN 3.8.1316–25; 4.12.1700).
58 Gertrude of Helfta, The Herald of Divine Love, trans. Winkworth, Margaret (New York: Paulist Press, 1993), 106 (2.8.3)Google Scholar modified slightly. Cf. Siena, Catherine of, The Dialogue, trans. Noffke, Suzanne (New York: Paulist, 1980), 325Google Scholar.
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60 de la Cruz, SW, 133, 145 (de la Cruz, DN 4.9.1377,79; 4.12.1604–09). Cf. John 19:28.
61 Ibid., 141 (de la Cruz, DN 4.12.1538–39); 239 (de la Cruz, The Athenagoric Letter).
62 Ibid., 123–24 (de la Cruz, DN 3.7.1104–1112). See also de la Cruz, Ant., 188.
63 de la Cruz, SW, 154 (de la Cruz, DN 5.13.1786–96).
64 Ibid., 167 (de la Cruz, DN 5.16.2139–54); de la Cruz, OC, 2:211 (no. 349); Ellis, “How Is a Narcissistic Christ Possible?,” 177–79. See also de la Cruz, OC, 213–14 (no. 351).
65 de la Cruz, SW, 224–25, 237–39; de la Cruz, OC, 2:207–08. See also Patterson, “Jesuit Neo-Scholasticism and Criollo Consciousness in Sor Juana's El mártir del sacramento, San Hermenegildo,” 463.
66 Tavard, Juana Inés de la Cruz and the Theology of Beauty: The First Mexican Theology, 196.
67 See note 73.
68 See Kirkpatrick, Judith A., “The Word and the Woman: Creative Echoing in Sor Juana's El divino Narciso,” Hispanófila 122 (1998): 57–58Google Scholar; Gonzalez, Sor Juana, 107–08.
69 See Bynum, Caroline Walker, Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 261–69, 287Google Scholar.
70 Ellis, “How Is a Narcissistic Christ Possible?,” 179.
71 Gonzalez, Sor Juana, 69, 77.
72 Cf. Kennett, “The Theology of The Divine Narcissus,” 72.
73 de la Cruz, SW, 124–27 (de la Cruz, DN 3.7); de la Cruz, OC, 2:209–10, 214–15; Boss, “Union with God,” 62–64. Fernando Suárez, Commentariorum ac disputationum in tertium parten Divi Tomae (n.p., 1614), II, disp. 1, sec. 1, 3. See Tavard, Juana Inés de la Cruz and the Theology of Beauty: The First Mexican Theology, 67–68; Paz, Sor Juana, or, The Traps of Faith, 461–62. 3. For a brief overview of Suárez's theology of grace, see Camacho, Ramón Kuri, “Francisco Suárez, teólogo y filósofo de la imaginación y la libertad,” Revista de Filosofía 58, no. 1 (2008): 79–101Google Scholar.
74 Cortés-Vélez, “Marian Devotion and Religious Paradox in Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz,” 183–97; de la Cruz, OC, 2:6–14.
75 de la Cruz, SW, 125–26, 134–35 (de la Cruz, DN 3.7.1133–48, 4.10.1410–12); Parker, “The Calderonian Sources of El divino Narciso by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz,” 270; Tavard, Juana Inés de la Cruz and the Theology of Beauty: The First Mexican Theology, 121. See also de la Cruz, OC, 2:99–110, 211–12; Ellis, “How Is a Narcissistic Christ Possible?,” 177–79. She also links the Immaculate Conception with water in other works, such as de la Cruz, SW, 177; de la Cruz, OC, 2:105. The water also points to baptism and the crucifixion. Gonzalez, Sor Juana, 79; Checa, “El divino Narciso y la redención del lenguaje,” 209.
76 de la Cruz, Ant., 132–35. She revisits this theme in de la Cruz, SW, 121 (de la Cruz, DN 2.6.1037–40). Interestingly, Sor Juana also points to this beautiful blackness in an earlier villancico, where an African voice praises Mary as “una Nenglita beya,” a beautiful black girl. de la Cruz, OC, 2:315; cf. 16.
77 de la Cruz, SW, 47–48; de la Cruz, OC, 2:10–12. See also Cortés-Vélez, “Marian Devotion and Religious Paradox in Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz,” 197; de la Cruz, SW, 121, 181.
78 See Glantz, Margo, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: Hagiografía o autobiografía? (Mexico City: Grijalbo, 1995), 105Google Scholar; Kennett, “The Theology of The Divine Narcissus,” 70–71; Kirkpatrick, “The Word and the Woman,” 65; Finley, Sarah, “Embodied Sound and Female Voice in Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz's Canon: Romance 8 and El divino Narciso,” Revista de Estudios Hispanicos 50, no. 1 (2016): 209CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gonzalez, Sor Juana, 78, 103–04. Cf. Merrim, “Narciso desdoblado,” 114; Early Modern, 191–94.
79 Kirkpatrick, “The Word and the Woman,” 60–66; Folger, “Narcisos,” 190.
80 de la Cruz, SW, 169 (de la Cruz, DN 5.16.2196–98). Cf. Kirkpatrick, 62. See also Checa, “El divino Narciso y la redención del lenguaje,” 218.
81 Gonzalez, Sor Juana, 92.
82 de la Cruz, SW, 88 (Loa 5.495–96).
83 Hahn, “‘As If There Were No Damages’: Representing Native American Spirituality in the Dramas of Lope de Vega and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz,” 10, 12–13.
84 Ibid., 14, 17.
85 See the Devotional Exercises: de la Cruz, SW, 183–86.
86 Ibid., 255 (Response). See also Bokser, Julie A., “Sor Juana's Rhetoric of Silence,” Rhetoric Review 25, no. 1 (2006): 5–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
87 Gonzalez, Sor Juana, 95.
88 Ibid., 105.
89 de la Cruz, SW, 277 (Response).
90 Ibid., 278 (Response).
91 Tavard, Juana Inés de la Cruz and the Theology of Beauty: The First Mexican Theology, 192, 195.
92 de la Cruz, OC, 1:167, rendered into English rhyme in order to preserve something of its effect. A more literal translation can be found in de la Cruz, SW, 59.