The Criticism is Coming from Inside the Casa: Sor Juana’s Colonial Critique

Abstract

The debates surrounding Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz’s fictional work have frequently centered on her use of autobiographical details to inform her characterizations and plots. In Los empeños de una casa, Sor Juana incorporates not only her personal details but also her deep connections to Mexico as a colonized state, to an extent not yet fully explored by scholars. Thus, she breaks the rules of her peninsular counterparts, and subsequently critiques Spain as an imperial power under the guise of a simple comedia de capa y espada. Although the gracioso servant, Castaño, has always been obviously a colonial figure, there are arguments that two more of the protagonists have New World roots. As the play progresses, we find they can overcome the machinations of their peninsular foils at least in part due to their outsider status, ultimately demonstrating a kinder, gentler form of living and loving. Given the play’s original intended audience of religious and secular powers, this demonstrates not only Sor Juana’s subtle genius, but her ability to fly under the radar of her potential censors, ultimately foreshadowing the issues that would arise as Spain’s reach grew into an uncontrollably large empire, destined to fail.

Keywords:

• Sor Juana
• colonial
• gracioso
• Los empeños de una casa
• empire
• power
• comedia

Notes

1 Although Patricia Kenworthy recognizes that some scholars “have attempted to identify the indigenous elements of Sor Juana’s theater,” her view is that there is little American influence on the dramaturg’s work, but also admits that she is “not interested in attributing any differences in their [Sor Juana and Calderón] works to biographical circumstances” (104). Biographical circumstances, however, are impossible to ignore when you are discussing the work of Sor Juana, whose life experience is so unique for her time that it should be considered.

2 As I have argued elsewhere, Sor Juana’s version inverts the plot devices used in traditional comedias de capa y espada. Unlike plays such as Calderóns La dama duende, or even the phonemically similar Los empeños de un acaso, Sor Juana’s female protagonists start out with the freedom to exist in the public sphere, only to be subsequently entrapped (Cowling, “Beyond the Veil” 133-4). At the beginning of the play, Ana explains to her servant Celia how she came to know Juan in her brother’s absence: “… así en Madrid me dejó,/donde estando sola yo,/y poder ser vista y ver/me vio don Juan y le vi…” (1.22–5).

3 Taking the metaphor a step further, we could interpret the last four lines as an indication of a mixed-race heritage for Carlos. The idea of his face being marked with “varonil desgarro” that does not allow “hermosura” to take a seat could be taken to mean that his Spanish features are more visibly prominent, preventing his Indigenous background from being obvious. As previously acknowledged, however, censorship and moral codes of the period would have likely prevented this from being visually obvious in peninsular performances of the play.

4 Although Calderón’s Los empeños de un acaso has frequently been cited as the definitive source text for Sor Juana’s version, there is a third version of this plotline that predates both Sor Juana and Calderón, Los empeños de un engaño by Juan Ruiz de Alarcón. For more on this timeline and the similarities between the three comedias see Erin Alice Cowling, “Recuperating Ruíz de Alarcón.” For this reason, I am calling Calderón’s text a “version” and not a source herein.

5 See García Valdés 195.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Erin Cowling

Erin Cowling is associate professor of Spanish at MacEwan University in Canada. She is the author of Chocolate: How a New World Commodity Conquered Spanish Literature, University of Toronto Press, 2021. Her current research interests lie in the modern adaptations of early modern theater by Latinx artists, a project under development with Glenda Y. Nieto-Cuebas, the progress of which can be followed at www.siglolatinx.com.