Lesbian Tenth Muse: On Juana Inés de la Cruz and Sappho.

I love Lisi, but I do not pretend

That Lisi corresponds my finesse,

Well, if I judge her beauty possible,

To her decorum and my apprehension I offend.

– Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz.

You’ve heard of Sappho but have you heard of sor Juana Inés de la Cruz? Like many lesbians from history, drawing conclusions about Juana’s attraction to women is risky, despite the clues. She is an important historical figure in Mexico, particularly for her contribution to literature, so admitting there is evidence to support her lesbianism has been denied by academics, critics and writers. Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz is not the first (possible) lesbian from history to have her attraction to women dismissed; even poet Sappho’s lesbianism is doubted. So who was Juana Inés de la Cruz? What is the evidence she could have been a lesbian? How is she the Mexican Sappho?

Firstly, let’s speak Sappho.

Jane McIntosh Snyder mentions in her book, Sappho, that we don’t know much about the poet’s life and what we do know is mythologized. It’s recorded that Sappho was born around 615 B.C, to an aristocratic family on the island of Lesbos, Greece, and that she had three brothers: Erigyos, Charaxos and Larichos. It is believed that Sappho had a husband and a daughter named Kleis. However, her husband was probably a lesbian joke, as his name was Kerkylas of Andros (Dick of Man), and Kleis was probably not her daughter but a woman she was romantically involved with.

The word ‘Lesbian’ originates in Sappho’s birthplace, Lesbos. ‘Sapphic’ is inspired by Sappho’s name. Building a language for attraction between women that revolves around Sappho’s life is an ode to the poet herself. It is a respectful nod to lesbians who have existed before the word for it did. It makes complete sense when we consider Sappho’s erotic and romantic verses addressed to other women. 

I simply want to be dead.

Weeping she left me

with many tears and said this:

Oh how badly things have turned out for us.

Sappho, I swear, against my will I leave you.

And I answered her:

Rejoice, go and

remember me. For you know how we cherished you.

But if not, I want

to remind you

and beautiful times we had.

‒ Fragment 94, Sappho.

A counter-argument to Sappho’s lesbianism is that she never mentions lesbian sexual desire in her poems. However, André Lardinois outlines that, in Fragment 94 (above), she does. Lardinois points out that: “in this poem, Sappho mentions her own name, so there can be no doubt with the identity of the narrator. She addresses a girl who had to leave her and starts recalling things they did together just to put in the middle of those memories: ‘And on soft beds…you would satisfy your longing’.” “Fragment 94” is proof of lesbian sexual desire. 

Mary. R. Lefkowitz and Maureen B. Fant also note that “many of Sappho’s poems described a world that men never saw: the deep love women could feel for one another in a society that kept the sexes apart.” While Lardinois, Lefkowitz, Fant and sapphics witness obvious lesbianism in Sappho’s poetry, Sappho’s sexuality is debated in ways heterosexuality is not. 

Despite Sappho’s contested personal life, she was revered as a great poet in her time, including by Plato. Sappho is so synonymous with lesbianism that whether she’s loved or hated often depends on how the society in question views homosexuality. According to Jane McIntosh Synder, early Christian fathers criticized Sappho because her poetry celebrates love between women. Mentions of Sappho declined in the Medieval Era but she then reemerged in the Renaissance, as a virginal aristocratic figure. Now Sappho is reclaimed by sapphics worldwide, as an important symbolic, iconic lesbian figure from history.

Now to Juana Inés…

Juana Inés de Asbaje Ramírez de Santillana was born in San Miguel de Nepantla, Mexico, around 1650. Juana was writing poetry from a very young age and, remarkably, Juana’s intelligence was noted by those around her. Women were rarely celebrated for their minds at the time, let alone women born out of wedlock to a lower-class family like Juana was.

It is astounding how much respect Juana garnered by the end of her life. Juana’s poetry granted her a place in the court of the vicereine Leonor de Carreto, who became her patron during her stay in New Spain (now Mexico). According to Cristina Domenech: «Juana found out soon enough that the court was not her thing, everything was frivolous, superficial and there were a lot of suitors asking for her hand when she only wanted to study». Juana quit the court and, like many lesbians, became a nun, taking the robe of the order of Saint Jerome. Juana didn’t become a nun because she felt the conviction to do so. She wanted to read, write and learn as much and as often as possible, which wouldn’t have been possible if she were to marry a man. 

Juana had a profound affinity for a particular woman. Her world was rocked when a new vicereine arrived in New Spain: Maria Luisa Manrique de Lara y Gonzaga. Juana, now Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, because of the religious order she was in, had the duty to write Maria poems exalting her qualities, as she did with vicereines before. However, there were palpable differences between the poems that Juana wrote to Maria Luisa and the others. For example, with the previous vicereine, Leonor, the poems tended to take a grateful tone, even when Juana called her “Laura” in her work, just like Petrarch’s lover. With the vicereine who came after Maria Luisa, the Countess of Galve, the poet used a more respectful, emotionally-distant tone. The poems Juana wrote to Maria just hit different:

 I approach, and I withdraw: 

who but I could find 

absence in the eyes,

 presence in what’s far?

 From the scorn of Phyllis,

 Now, alas, I must depart. 

One is indeed unhappy 

who misses even scorn! 

So caring is my love

 that my present distress

 minds hard-heartedness less 

than the thought of its loss.

‒ I approach, and I withdraw, probably written after María’s departure. Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz.

The poems to María Luisa (Lysis or Phylis in her poetry), on the other hand, didn’t only highlight her beauty and intelligence: the poetry alluded to a unique, romantic closeness. Some poems even referred to jealousy, the fear of rejection and unrequited love. Aurora González Roldán argues that sor Juana’s poems to María Luisa were a tradition of the times, even if her praises to Maria Luisa were exaggerated in comparison to other vicereines. But Juana, whether even she knew it or not, exhibited the desire for a romantic relationship with Maria:

My divine Lysis:

do forgive my daring,

if so I address you,

unworthy though I am to be known as yours. 

—My Divine Lysis, 1689. sor Juana Inés de la Cruz.

Juana’s romance #19 is also strong proof that Juana was sapphic:

How could I fail to love you,

once I found you divine?

Can a cause fail to bring results,

capacity go unfulfilled?

Since you are the acme of beauty,

the height of all that’s sublime–

that Time’s green axle-tree

beholds in its endless turning–

‒(Romance #19, 1689, sor Juana Inés de la Cruz).

According to Ashley Kathleen Kimura, the erotic tone of the poem, and that sor Juana was uninterested in men–being a nun–supports claiming sor Juana as a lesbian figure. The fact a nun composed a large number of poems that were dedicated to women, both as a duty and on her own accord, is something significant, meaningful and very lesbian.

In 1693, a few years after Maria Luisa left, Juana sold her library, as well as her musical and scientific instruments, and quit writing. Some academics speculate that she did so due to a personal crisis. Some people believe Juana was in a spiritual fight with herself. Others think she was just tired. The Mexican poet Octavio Paz speculated that it could be because the earl of Galve started to lose power in 1692, making Juana an easy target for those who frowned on women being educated. Lesbians can see her drastic loss of creative passion as symptomatic of a broken heart. Juana died in 1695 after a typhus outbreak in the convent.

The similarities between Sappho and sor Juana

Sappho and sor Juana are kindred spirits. According to Cristina Domenech: «their memory changes according to the time where they are being studied». Juana has historically been recorded as the nun who could write wonderful verses, but it is only recently that historians study her personal life. Some theorists, like Roland Barthes, believe that one shouldn’t draw conclusions about an artist’s personal life from what they create. However, the best way to get to know Juana is through her work (especially through her Reply to Sor Filotea, and her letter to Father Nuñez) … and her work communicates a deep, romantic love for women.

 That you’re a woman far away

 is no hindrance to my love: 

for the soul, as you well know,

 distance and sex don’t count.

‒ Romance #19, 1689, sor Juana Inés de la Cruz.

Sappho is either viewed as a tragic figure or a genius of literature, depending on society and its norms. Such mythologization is also apparent in interpretations of sor Juana’s life: it’s hard to know what’s true when the available information is both limited and straight-washed.

Like with Sappho, scholars advise against biographical readings of Juana’s work, while they intently study heterosexual declarations of love–including the parallels with the artist, poet or writer’s personal life–for centuries on end. Professor Amanda Powell points out that “if the love poems by sor Juana considered here address ‘friends’, then this ‘friendship’ evokes ardent and melting declarations using language figures found elsewhere in the period in avowals of passionate (heterosexual) love.” Why is it frowned upon for us to interpret sor Juana as a lesbian? Homophobia.

There are paralleled mysteries surrounding Sappho and Juana’s lives as well as paralleled talent. In fact, both writers were nicknamed the “Tenth Muse” because of their poetic greatness. Sappho and sor Juana wrote a vast compilation of love poems addressed to other women and these poems should be classed as lesbian heritage. Sappho and sor Juana’s poems reveal the loneliness of lesbians throughout history, as well as our unique experience of women who only love women. 

Homophobia leads to a lack of lesbian representation; lesbians from history are not going to explicitly refer to themselves as such, so it is useless to expect unambiguous declarations of their sexual orientation before we make evidence-based assumptions. I believe both poets were lesbian because there is nothing more revealing about ourselves than the art we create. We, lesbians, can see our own experiences with love and attraction mirrored in their work and that matters.

You set me on fire. – Fragment 11. Sappho.

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