Lezama Lima read Sor Juana

Abstract

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz’s Sueño has led a varied range of interpretations. Scholars have identified, in her verses, tenets of neo-platonism, hermeticism, cartesianism and scholastic philosophy. However, in Lezama’s opinion, this unbeatable poem and unparalleled in American literature, has not yet been read in depth. In the essay "The Baroque curiosity" from the book The American expression (1957), the Cuban writer proposes a different reading of the poem by Sor Juana in several ways. In principle, registered in the controversial horizon that characterizes the relationship of European art with American, Lezama’s interpretation recognized, in the Dream, the traces of the daring exploits of contra-conquest secretly express the Baroque art forms in these lands. But also he argues that assist in the verses of Sor Juana the deployment of an inordinate appetite for knowledge. The poem contains a knowledge achieved in the poetic experience starring the soul during sleep and configured in analogy mode Orphic knowledge that permeates the Lezamian worldview. This paper examines the factors that the writer ponders in his reading of Dream in an attempt to recover the secret meaning he discovers in the verses.