Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz - Essay Example

Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz The life of Juana Ines de la Cruz was an exemplary illustration of a person with innate talent who pursued intellectual growth at her utmost capability and during a time when academic developments were marginally encouraged for females in Mexico (Oregon State University, par. 2). She was born in the year 1648 in San Miguel Mepantla, a village in Mexico. Various accounts of her life attest that she was an illegitimate child, whose parents were Isabel Ramírez de Santillana and Pedro Manuel de Asbaje, with five siblings: four sisters and one brother, likewise considered illegitimate (Kantaris, par. 11). The remarkable details of her challenges in life focus on her quest for knowledge.

At a very tender age of three, she has showed signs of commendable intellectual skills that the collection of books of his grandfather served as her mental refuge. It was likewise revealed that by the age of six or seven, her burning desire to learn more through formal education led her to beg her mother to send her to Mexico University, an institution exclusively for males, as she planned to disguise as a boy (Oregon, par. 5; Kantaris, par. 12). When her grandfather supposedly died, she was sent to Mexico to live with her aunt.

It is here where she had learned lessons in Latin grammar, which, as averred by Kantaris, “enabled her to read philosophical and theological works in the language, and she came to be considered as something of a child prodigy. She began to be lionized in high society for her intelligence and also for her famed beauty” (par. 12). Her works that focus on the right of women to education were highly admirable given that she lived during a time when rights of women, especially to higher education were not yet encouraged, nor acceptable.

In her literary work entitled Reply to Sor Philothea, the depth of her contentions revealed that:if fathers wish to educate their daughters beyond what is customary, for want of trained older women and on account of the extreme negligence which has become women's sad lot, since well-educated older women are unavailable, they are obliged to bring in men teachers to give instruction.As a result of this, many fathers prefer leaving their daughters in a barbaric, uncultivated state to exposing them to an evident danger such a familiarity with men breeds (Oregon, par. 2)Further, through personal determination and discipline, she harnessed her skills, knowledge and abilities that enabled her to achieve what she sought for, despite difficulties and challenges of her times.

Still, referring to the same discourse: Reply to Sor Philothea, she rationalize the manner by which she inflicted punishments through cutting her hair to reinforce the need for faster learning, to wit: "It turned out that the hair grew quickly and I learned slowly. As a result, I cut off the hair in punishment for my head's ignorance, for it didn't seem right to me that a head so naked of knowledge should be dressed up with hair. For knowledge is a more desirable adornment" (Flynn, 15).The path she took as a nun in the Convent of the Order of St.

Jerome, where she spent the rest of her 46 years in life, attest to the magnanimous amount of literary genius, all 4,000 volumes (Kantaris, par. 16). She died, contracting the plague that likewise besieged her companion nuns in the convent on April 17, 1695, after a remarkably praiseworthy life.Works CitedDe La Cruz, Sor Juana. A Sor Juana Anthology. Trans. Alan S. Trueblood. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988. Print.Flynn, Gerard. Sor Juana Ines De La Cruz. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1971. Print.Kantaris, Geoffrey.

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (Juana Ramírez de Asbaje). 1992. Web. 29 March 2011. Oregon State University. Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz (1648-1695). N.d. Web. 29 March 2011.