Octavio Paz and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

This book explores the poetic and intellectual worlds of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648–1695) and Octavio Paz (1914–1998), two Mexican writers separated by centuries, yet united by their defiance of religious and political orthodoxies. Sor Juana challenged the Counter-Reformation’s strictures in seventeenth-century New Spain, while Paz rejected Stalinist communism before and after World War II. Both were masterful poets and essayists, fluent in multiple languages and literary traditions. Through biography, poetry, and poetics, the book examines Paz’s biography of Sor Juana (1982) and analyzes their landmark poems, Sor Juana’s El Sueño (1692) and Paz’s Blanco (1966). Despite their beauty and universal themes, both works have been deemed obscure by critics. This study includes an English translation and the original Spanish text of El Sueño, offering extensive analyses and connecting ancient, Renaissance, colonial, and modern influences for students, scholars, and attentive readers of poetry.