The 'Neptuno Alegorico' by Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz and the Renaissance mythographical tradition

This dissertation focuses on Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz's interpretation of Greco-Roman mythology in the Neptuno Alegorico (1680). Chapter 1 serves as an introduction and review of the pertinent criticism. Chapter 2 contextualizes the Neptuno within the Western mythographical tradition and discusses Sor Juana's use of mythological compendia, including Baltasar de Vitoria's Teatro de los dioses de la gentilidad. Though Sor Juana does not name him, Vitoria's text played a central role in her articulation of the triumphal arch design, as the careful side-by-side comparison included as Appendix B makes clear. The invitation to the reader to look for true meaning "entre las sombras de to fingido" is considered in Chapter 3. By highlighting what Sor Juana's text relegates to the shadows, we can unveil alternative interpretations of myth and the blueprints for a utopian space where woman's agency is unquestioned. Myth, as Paul Ricoeur has shown, allows for the creation of a discursive space between ideology and utopia. By successfully negotiating meaning within that space, Sor Juana expresses progressive ideas (the critique of the ruling ideology; the construction of utopia) while maintaining the appearance of convention (the use of myth). A concordance of references to mythological figures in Sor Juana's works, included as Appendix A, makes clear her versatility and steadfast recourse to this corpus. In the final chapter I demonstrate how the Mexican writer's message to the incoming Viceroy calls for him to establish a government that relies on reason before force, and to acknowledge that reason is grounded in the feminine. Sor Juana's refashioning of myth highlights the feminine figures surrounding Neptune, who represents the Marquis of Laguna, and especially the goddess Isis, whom Sor Juana recasts and foregrounds as the sea god's mother and teacher. She is his helpmate and his font of wisdom, just as the Vicereine, the Countess of Paredes, is to be for the Viceroy.