“Had Aristotle cooked, he would have written much more.”
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz · Baroque scholasticism
knowledge
Paraphrase or translation
Philosopher
Last reviewed:
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
1648 or 1651–1695 · Baroque scholasticism · Early modern
Juana Inés de Asbaje entered a convent in Mexico City, then New Spain, partly to be free to study, and became the most celebrated writer of the colonial Americas. In her Reply to Sor Filotea (1691), answering a bishop who wrote under a nun’s pen name to tell her to drop secular learning, she defended women’s right to study, citing learned women from history and Scripture.
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She argued that all branches of knowledge connect and that one can study the world anywhere, even in a kitchen. Her long poem First Dream follows the soul’s attempt to know everything. Late in life she gave up her library, under pressure that scholars still debate.
Two cards, one from the Reply, one from the poem ‘Hombres necios’.
Start here
The Answer / La Respuesta, tr. Arenal and Powell.
Short, witty, and the whole argument.
Quotations
“Foolish men who accuse women without reason, not seeing that you are the cause of the very thing you blame.”
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz · Baroque scholasticism
justicesociety
Paraphrase or translation
Key ideas
Women’s right to learn
Intelligence is not a matter of sex; study is a right.
Unity of knowledge
All sciences link, so theology needs the others.
Learning everywhere
The kitchen teaches natural philosophy too.
Major works
Respuesta a Sor Filotea (1691)
Tr. Electa Arenal and Amanda Powell.
Primero sueño (1692)
Philosophical poem.
Influences
Influenced
None listed in this library.
Common misreadings
- Her late silence is not proof she recanted willingly; the evidence is disputed.
- She was not anti-Church; she argued from inside its learning.
Famous lines Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz never said
None of the lines this library files for Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz is marked Questionable or Misattributed. That is only a fact about these cards. It is not a certificate that every popular sentence is theirs.
FAQ
What is the best book to start with?
The Answer / La Respuesta, tr. Arenal and Powell. Short, witty, and the whole argument.
What is the most famous quote?
This library does not measure fame, and it does not rank lines by how often they are shared. The first line it files for Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz that is not marked Questionable or Misattributed is “Had Aristotle cooked, he would have written much more.” (Respuesta a Sor Filotea, Paraphrase or translation).
What is the most misquoted line?
None of the lines this library files for Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz is marked Misattributed or Questionable. That is a fact about these cards, not a certificate that every popular sentence is theirs.
What is one key idea, in a sentence?
Women’s right to learn: Intelligence is not a matter of sex; study is a right.