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Description
During the time of the Viceroyalty in Mexico, women did not have access to higher education because it was accessible only to men of the clergy and members in high government positions. Thus, the dominant discourse belonged to them. The Church dominated the discourse of Biblical interpretation based on the principle of the dichotomy of the rational and the non-rational. According to this principle, only the clergy could interpret the Bible and therefore excluded women, whom they considered had no intellectual capacity to do so, that is no say that, irrational beings, to proclaim an interpretative discourse, thus assenting the dominance of the Church by the discourse of power. In this thesis, I explore the tenacity and ingenuity of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz in creating a discourse of resistance to ecclesiastical dogma through her writing with the purpose of transgressing the interpretive power of the Church in order to create a space to be heard through the denunciation of the injustices and educational inequality between men and women. Chapters one and two provide an introduction on the historical and theoretical-literary events of the Colonial Era, as well as the argument for the thesis. Chapter three presents the life of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz from her childhood to her life in the court and in the convent. Chapter four explains Julia Kristeva’s notion of intertextuality between Respuesta a la muy ilustre sor Filotea de la Cruz and three texts: Autodefensa espiritual, Primero Sueño, and Villancico a Santa Catarina. Chapters five and six analyze various excerpts from the Carta Atenagórica and Respuesta a la muy ilustre sor Filotea de la Cruz, respectively, essays where Sor Juana presents her self-defense against the Church. Finally, chapter seven concludes with a reflection on the right to knowledge in women. Keywords: Viceroyalty, clergy, dominant discourse, homogeneous discourse, discourse of interpretation, discourse of power, discourse of resistance, rational and irrational dichotomy, intertextuality.
