Review by Booklist Review
Widely considered the finest writer of the Spanish colonial era and arguably an early feminist, Sor Juana often garners less attention for her literary work than for her unbelievable biography. Born out-of-wedlock to a Spanish captain and a criollo woman in seventeenth-century New Spain, young Juana was barred from school, so she privately studied Latin and Nahuatl literatures, learned Greek logic, and composed poetry, eventually becoming a nun and earning praise as the Tenth Muse during her lifetime. For this selection of prose and verse, seasoned translator Grossman celebrates Sor Juana's formal ingenuity by arranging the poems according to familiar Western forms, such as sonnets, ballads, and epigrams, as well as two forms unique to Spanish literature, redondillas and décimas. Throughout, Sor Juana's ability to blend theological speculation with intense human emotion cries out from the page. Grossman does well to avoid forced rhyme schemes, instead rendering Sor Juana's rhythmic gifts in smart and elegant measures. This volume is vital to ensuring Sor Juana's life and work receive equal exposure.--Báez, Diego Copyright 2014 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
The first great poet to use a European language in the New World, Sor Juana (1651-1695) wrote elaborate, melancholy ballads, witty praise poems, tortured sonnets of love and mourning, dream-visions, allegories of empire and religion, barbed jokes, and vivid stage plays. Known in her day for her scholarly gifts as well as her poetic powers, the nun remains influential with Spanish-speaking and Latina writers today. Grossman-renowned translator of Garcia Marquez, Cervantes, and other Spanish fiction-remains true to the meters and syllabic patterns, but not to the rhymes, in Sor Juana's originals. While her accuracy is beyond question, her ear for verse can falter: in a love sonnet, Grossman's Sor Juana says "I conceive her great beauty as something so/ sacred that audacity does not wish/ to give the slightest opening hope." The absence of facing-page Spanish puts additional pressure on Grossman's English sounds. Though the poetry fascinates, the most impressive part of this compact selection might be the prose at the end: Sor Juana's famous 50-page defense of her life, her studies, and her writings against antifeminist currents in the Church. This careful book may ignite new attention to Sor Juana in English, for which Grossman will deserve even more praise. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
