Bookmarked: ‘Sor Juana,’ Patron Saint of Snark in Pentameter

Seventeenth-century poetry isn’t typically known for its sass, but Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz was never one for conventions. 

A Mexican nun and self-taught scholar, she used her words to challenge authority, turning poetry into both a weapon and a statement. Centuries later, her sharp wit still lands just as powerfully.

“Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: Selected Works,” translated by Edith Grossman, proves that centuries-old poetry doesn’t have to feel irrelevant. What could easily be dismissed as academic relics instead pulse with boldness, wit and a defiance that still cuts deep today.

Sor Juana wrote in the Baroque era, a time when women weren’t supposed to be educated, let alone question the hypocrisy of men and the church. But she did relentlessly and apologetically posthumously being crowned Latin America’s first feminist by The New York Historical. 

Grossman’s translation keeps Sor Juana’s voice alive without watering it down. The original Spanish is rich with intricate wordplay and rhythm, and Grossman manages to capture that sharpness in English without unnecessary modernization. Grossman ditches the sonnets’ rhyme scheme for translation purposes but preserves the poet’s snark and passion. 

Sor Juana’s poetry is layered, biting and almost conversational in its raw and outward expression. She employs the conventional Petrarchan sonnet form and uses the volta — the turn — as a tool to flip the script and infuse her prose with new meaning beside the conventional love story. 

“Redondilla 92” is one of Sor Juana’s most famous works addressed to men, in which she dismantles the sexual double standards men burden women with, by wielding a searing frustration towards their behavior and a venomous clarity about the reality of their expectation.

“To their sorrow your lovers give / Wings to restraints they fly away, / And after you make them sinful / You wish they were filled with virtue” Sor Juana wrote.

It’s challenging to resist the urge to highlight every line from “Redondilla 92.” There’s no sugarcoating — just pure, distilled frustration at the way men shape women’s reputations to suit their own needs. It’s refreshingly blunt, even centuries later. 

Alongside her razor-sharp critiques on men and intellectual bravado, Sor Juana penned intimate love letters that read like stolen confessions. Addressing the letters to women because her patron was a countess, her sensual redondillas and sonnets cement her status as a literary powerhouse for women.

Sor Juana’s love wasn’t the kind that begged for reciprocation. In “Sonnet 179,” she turns longing into a mental exercise, arguing true devotion means keeping one’s distance. 

Sor Juana starts the sonnet by positioning herself as both admirer and philosopher. She writes that to love someone greatly is to recognize being with them would diminish their greatness, as love itself becomes a disservice when tainted by one’s own flaws. It’s a calculated heartbreak.

“Yielding my great happiness to hers / In order not to see it badly used, / I think I would regret seeing her mine,” Sor Juana wrote.

Sor Juana refuses to reduce women to ornamental, empty metaphors, instead granting them the agency to compose their own song.  

“To your perfections / You alone know the notation,” Sor Juana wrote. 

Sor Juana juggled being a nun, a poet and a lover whose words crackle with wit and longing. But she also worked overtime to publicly shame bishops who dared to silence her.

The collection includes excerpts from “Response to Sor Filotea,” Sor Juana’s defense of a woman’s right to be educated, according to the Poetry Foundation. In this letter, she didn’t just respond — she clapped back at Bishop Manuel Fernández, who, hiding behind the pseudonym Sor Filotea, had the audacity to threaten her, insisting women shouldn’t be writing at all and should only silently follow teachings of scripture.  

Sor Juana’s response is a masterclass in intellectual combat — graceful, persuasive and laced with just enough sarcasm to make it clear she won’t back down.  

“It is not enough in the world for a wise brain to be ridiculed, it must also be wounded and mistreated,” Sor Juana wrote.

“Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: Selected Works” isn’t just a collection of poetry. It’s a reminder that words can persist — even when their author was condemned to silence. 

“Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: Selected Works,” translated by Edith Grossman, can be purchased online.