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SorJuana Ines de la Cruz:Religion, Art, and Feminism. By Pamela Kirk. (New York: The Continuum Press. 1998. Pp. 180. $34.50.)
A first acquaintance with Sor Juana in 1988 moved Pamela Kirk to write this work, which is mostly an analysis of the religious writings of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz: her sacramental dramas, the meditations for the Virgin Mary, her villancicos or poems to be sung on special church celebrations, and her famous Carta Atenag6rica, an analysis of the finest gifts of Christ to humanity. Also included is the story of her controversial relationship with the bishop of Puebla, Manuel Fernandez de Santa Cruz, embodied in a response to his critique. Less ambitious than George Tavard's Theology of Beauty, this book seems to aim at a general reader with interest in how religious women writers of the past tackled the challenge of interpreting theological teachings.
Sor Juana needs no introduction to any student of Latin American colonial literature and history....