SOURCE: "Love in Some of Sor Juana's Sonnets," in Colonial Latin American Review, Vol. 4, No. 2, 1995, pp. 101-23.

In the following essay, Sabat de Rivers explores the defining characteristics of Cruz's love sonnets.

The love sonnets of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz belong to the long and varied tradition of love poetry in the Western World, which goes back at least to Greek literature, when the militant, masculine poetry of Homer gave way to the feminine sensibility of Sappho. As the first great love poet of Greece, she developed a voice that was totally different from that of Homer, a voice that was personal and introspective, focused on intimate emotions, whether pleasant or unpleasant, even at times anguished and associated with pathological symptoms. In her poetry woman occupies the center of the stage and cultivates the typically Western individual personality, subtly analyzing a great variety of affective...