Literary self-fashioning in Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

"This book offers a close reading of selected poetic, dramatic, and prose works by Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz (1651-1695). With thorough knowledge of theoretical debates about writing, subjectivity, and gender, Frederick Luciani elucidates ways in which this important colonial Mexican intellectual and literary figure created a textual self through her writing. Literary Self-Fashioning analyzes Sor Juana's complex, varied, and strategic process of literary self-fashioning, the self-promotional and self-protective functions it served, and its consequences for her readers and for subsequent generations. The book, likewise, situates its readings of Sor Juana's work against the background of the arc of her career - its ascent in the 1680s, its descent and disintegration in the 1690s."--Jacket.