The Fame of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz traces the meteoric trajectory of the Mexican Tenth Muse’s renown and studies how her worldly celebrity was altered posthumously by elegists in her Fama y obras póstumas [Fame and Posthumous Works] of 1700. In this study of a polyphonic, transatlantic volume, the didactic framework of early modern fame is pushed to its limits as panegyrists inscribe the nun into an evolving world-view that could trade in the fictions of the saintly exemplar, the Tenth Muse or a New World treasure, but could not preserve a woman’s renown on the grounds of authorship....
The Fame of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz traces the meteoric trajectory of the Mexican Tenth Muse’s renown and studies how her worldly celebrity was a...