THE COURTLY LOVE TRADITION IN THE POETRY OF SOR JUANA INES DE LA CRUZ

The amorous poetry of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz is seldom studied within the context of the European tradition from which it derived; it has served more often as material for biographical and psychoanalytical speculation. This dissertation proposes to remedy this critical shortcomimg by examining Sor Juana's love poetry within the courtly love tradition, whose traceable origins were in the lyric of the Provencal troubadours, and whose influence in European verse was widespread and enduring. The poems by Sor Juana studied in this dissertation all reveal an acute awareness of the pressures of the tradition. This dissertation hopes to elucidate this awareness as well as the rhetorical challenges faced by Sor Juana as she struggled to modify, reanimate, or transcend a courtly love mode whose expressive possibilities were nearly exhausted.;Chapter II uses the prototypical courtly love process as a structuring grid to analyze eight poems by Sor Juana in terms of the courtly love themes and tropes which they contain, and compares them to examples from poets from the troubadours through the Italian Middle Ages and Renaissance and the Spanish Golden Age. Each poem is analyzed as a reworking of traditional elements into a unique rhetorical structure.;The third chapter looks at burlesque views of love in Sor Juana's ovillejo and in her burlesque sonnets. These poems are analyzed and compared to traditional satirical and parodic views of courtly love. The ovillejo, in particular, with its subversive treatment of poetic convention, is studied as an effort on the part of Sor Juana to find an original place for herself within a declining Petrarchan tradition.;The last chapter draws some general conclusions regarding the dialogue between originality and tradition which is present in Sor Juana's love poetry, as well as her adaptation of the rhetoric of love as a vehicle for social self-promotion and literary self-affirmation.;The first chapter summarizes the general critical tendencies regarding Sor Juana's amorous lyric. The European tradition of amorous lyric is then briefly traced from medieval Provence to Baroque New Spain, and courtly love is defined and discussed as a critical concept.