Dorothy Schones (Essay Date November 1926)

SOURCE: Schones, Dorothy. "Some Obscure Points in the Life of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz." Modern Philology 24, no. 2 (November 1926): 141-62.

In the following essay, Schones addresses some of the central questions about Sor Juana's life, including her motivation to join a religious order, her name and its bearing on her colonial loyalties, and her decision to stop writing after her "Respuesta."

I

The biography of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz is yet to be written. Though much has appeared on the subject, many things still remain unexplained. Material of the period in which she lived is very limited. The fact that she was a nun made her figure less in the works of her contemporaries than would otherwise have been the case, and the period of literary stagnation following her death contributed still further to the oblivion...