Research in Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz in the 21st century

Abstract

Research on sister Juana Inés de la Cruz during the second part of the twentieth century was almost exclusively about her work; when texts were written about her life, imaginative assumptions were made without new documentary evidence –for example, The Traps of Faith, by Octavio Paz, is closer to a historical novel than to a biography. By contrast, in the 20 years of the twenty-first century, numerous documents have been located: unknown data about her father, Pedro de Asuaje; evidence relating to the origin of her paternal family in the Canary Islands; the baptismal act of her father and grandfather, etc. that will allow us to write a new and truthful biography of the Tenth Muse.