Abstract

In her wonderful book, Approaches to the Theory of Freedom in Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Virginia Aspe produces a groundbreaking presentation of Sor Juana’s theory of freedom with productive scholarship on the Coimbran Jesuit tradition and Renaissance Humanism in Latin America. In this paper, I center on Aspe’s interpretation of two of Sor Juana’s major works, First Dream, in which a disembodied dreaming soul rises into the nighttime sky in an attempt to take in and understand the universe, and Critique of a Sermon, in which Sor Juana lays out counter-arguments to the Jesuit preacher Antonio Vieira’s designation of the greatest demonstration of Christ’s love and its implications for human freedom and God’s grace. My goal is to supplement and sometimes critique the interpretations endorsed by Aspe so as to ultimately enrich Aspe’s key insights into Sor Juana’s philosophical views. Ultimately, I first argue that Aspe’s Aristotelian interpretation of First Dream is necessary but not sufficient for understanding Sor Juana’s poem, which requires the inclusion 15th and 16th century Neoplatonism. Secondly, I argue that in her interpretation of Critique of a Sermon Aspe misattributes a view to Sor Juana that belongs to Antonio Vieira, which requires a small tweak to her theory of Sor Juana’s views on freedom and human moral psychology.