Cathlyn A. Harris
Performing Colonialism
Professor Diana Taylor
21 December, 2000Between God and Man Sor Juana and The Divine Narcissus
The arrival of the Spaniards on the American continent (specifically, Mexico) initiated far more than just a military conquest over people and territory. What they brought with them in addition to their horses, their armor, and their weaponry, was something that proved to be just as powerful in their attempts to subjugate and subdue the new lands and the new cultures they encountered: namely, "a new world view."1 Although it is difficult to look backward over such a span of time and discern if the Spaniards were conscious of their unacknowledged arsenal, what is clear is that they imposed their world view rather ruthlessly upon those American peoples they came in contact with. This new (to the Americas) world view not only justified and defined the Spaniards' military campaign, but also overlaid their concepts of space, humanity, race, and religion over pre-existing indigenous structures. Soon after the conquest, edicts were enforced that separated the indigenous peoples very definitely, and very permanently from the Spaniards, in such a way that the Spaniards literally became, geographically as well as politically, the very center of urban life in New World communities, while the indigenous peoples were pushed farther and farther away from “civilization” (de Landa, "Ordinance").2 Likewise, the Spanish prejudice against dark skin began to take hold, and new "castes" or categories of skin color (with their accompanying social standings) began to circulate (Cope, "The Limits"). And underpinning all of this activity and socio-political change was the imperative of the Catholic faith to convert the indigenous people and eradicate their "abominable" practices of idol worship and human sacrifice (Cortes, "Second Letter"). As complete eradication of the Mexica world view would have necessitated the complete destruction of all those who subscribed to it (although the Spaniards did try, burning indigenous picture writings, pulling down temples, and smashing idols), the Spanish imposition of their own world view was only partially successful. Indeed, it could be argued that Mexican culture today manifests as many pre-Columbian influences as it does Spanish.
The dissimilarities between these two world views and their widely differing concepts (or lack of constructions, in some cases) of space, race, and religion, among others, could perhaps be summed up in one observation: all of these disparities emerge from a fundamental, and completely contrary, difference in the understanding of the relationship between the human and the divine. The Spaniards viewed humanity, and indeed the whole world, as being somehow tainted by evil, as being somehow "less" than deity, always incapable of embodying the divine, while the Mexica viewed the human and the world as being intimately connected with the functions of the deity, even, in many cases, sustaining the divine (Clendinnen, “Ritual”). What I am suggesting here is that the Spanish understanding of their place in the world was marked by an insurmountable breach or gap between the human and the divine, while for the Mexica, this gap did not exist. It is perhaps this difference between these two world views that most sets them apart, that most succinctly explains how they engendered two such widely disparate cultures.
One of the cultural manifestations of this differing view of the relationship between man and God/gods was the way in which either culture viewed the products of man, or the "creations of his hands." One culture clearly viewed the arts and other humanitarian pursuits to be somewhat frivolous, requiring careful control and regulation so as to avoid tainting by the demonic ("Las Artes"), while the other viewed them as manifestations of the gods, if not as the gods themselves (Clendinnen, "Ritual"). The history of the conquest of Mexico, then, is not merely one of military—or even religious—struggle, in the strictest of terms, but is rather the history of the endeavor to reconcile these two understandings of man and his own creations in the eyes of the deity.
This reconciliation was further complicated by the astonishing degree of synchretism in the religious practices of the Mexica and the Spaniards, despite the fundamental difference in their understandings of the god/man relationship. The Spaniards were placed in the awkward position of trying to explain the subtleties that separated their religious rites from those of the Mexica, whose rites seemed, to Spanish eyes, to be a "diabolical imitation" of their own (Duran, 95). How were they, for example, to convey the difference between eating the Eucharist as a symbol of the body and flesh of Christ, and eating the seed or maize dough loaf or figure as the body and flesh of Huitzilopotchli (Clendinnen, "Ritual," 252–253)? Surely the Spaniards' difficulty lay precisely in the complexity of articulating the gap between the human and the man-made and the divine and the divinely made.
As Homi Bhabha presents in his essay "Of Mimicry and Man," the difficulty with this gap is that the "imitator" (man), precisely because he is imitating, can never be the "original" (God). Rather, what the imitator and his attempts to mimic the original accomplish is to mark and re-mark the distance between the original and the imitation. Regardless of how perfect his imitation becomes, the imitator will never be the original. Or, translated into the Spaniards' religious terms, no matter how hard man strives for perfection, for godliness, he will never achieve it. He will never be it. He will only be man, imitating God. And in his poor acts of human creativity, he will only be imitating God's limitless creative power (and blasphemously imitating, at that). So how were the Spaniards (with their almost hyper-awareness of this gap) to explain to the Mexica (who were not even aware of it) the nature of the gap, and the reliance upon symbolism and imitation it necessitated?
The Divine Narcissus, an auto sacramental by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, a 17th century Mexican nun famed for her beauty and intelligence (Peters, "Introduction," x), both thematically and as a project, attempts to do so. In The Divine Narcissus, Sor Juana not only addresses, and indeed tries to hurdle, the gap itself and its two oppositional world views, but also the synchretism between the two religious systems. In so doing, Sor Juana herself seems to take the first few steps toward divinity through her theatrical creation.
The Humanly Divine Narcissus3
…I considered it necessary to ascend the steps of human arts and sciences, for how can one who has not mastered the style of the ancillary branches of learning hope to understand that of the queen of them all? […] In sum, how [is one] to understand the book which takes in all books, and the knowledge which embraces all types of knowledge, to the understanding of which they all contribute?
—Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
("The Reply to Sor Philothea," 213–215)
This, an excerpt from Sor Juana's famous response to "Sor Philothea"4 is not only part of that famous letter's larger defense of her own pursuit of "worldly" knowledge, but is also a pointed defense of the study of all secular knowledge as a way to more fully understand Holy Scripture (the "book which takes in all books"). A perhaps somewhat risky strategy, given the general political and religious environment of the time, and perhaps even riskier, given her own somewhat shaky position with Mexico's Archbishop (Taylor, Lecture). However, the risk she took in constructing such a response in such conditions could be viewed as an indication of just how highly she valued her "worldly" accomplishments, and how strongly she felt about their place in her religious life.The Divine Narcissus, an auto sacramental composed, as such plays were, "to provide theological instruction" about the Holy Eucharist (Peters, "Introduction," xviii), offers up a unique view of Sor Juana's perception of the gap between God and man. As the title indicates, Sor Juana chose a metaphor highly steeped in "worldly" knowledge and even in pagan traditions to present this sacred topic: the mythological tale of Narcissus. With her choice of metaphor she not only demonstrates her own familiarity with and mastery of secular learning, but also seeks to weld this man-made knowledge with aspects of the divine.
Her mastery over secular knowledge is also manifested through the structure of the play itself, which is extremely complex. The auto, in traditional fashion, is preceded by a loa, or prologue, which sets the scene for the auto. The primary characters in the loa are Occident, a "gallant-looking Aztec, wearing a crown" (3); America, "an Aztec woman of poised self-possession" (both wear traditional Aztec clothes; 3); Zeal, "a Captain General in armor" accompanied by soldiers (7); and (Christian) Religion, "a Spanish lady" (7). The loa opens with a celebration to the "great God of Seeds" (1:14), complete with indigenous costumes, music, and dance—all prohibited by various edicts ("Las Artes"; de Landa)—and closes with a dedication to that same deity. During the loa itself, Sor Juana retells the story of the conquest of Mexico, specifically the religious conquest of Mexico. However, her characterizations of the loa's main participants, her explicit references to the parallels between Aztec and Catholic rites, and the language she uses to depict the conquest would indicate that she is singularly ambivalent toward the distinctions drawn between the world views of the two cultures. Her descriptions of her two indigenous characters, Occident and America, are no less respectful than her descriptions of her two Spanish characters, Zeal and Religion. In other words, neither culture is given precedence or superiority over the other in her descriptions. Furthermore, the way that she genders the encounter between the Spaniards and the Mexica both reifies and destabilizes pre-existing stereotypes about the conquest. Both "sides" of the conquest have a male and female counterpart, or a "couple" who together fights against the opposite pair. The Spanish side is divided into two parts: military strength (male) and religion (female); the indigenous side, while split into male/female, follows no such similar splitting of "duties." The male and female indigenous characters, then, could perhaps both embody religious and military might, while the Spanish lady Religion must depend upon Zeal to do her fighting for her. Sor Juana's depiction of Religion as "a lady," divided from, and yet dependent upon, Zeal for enforcement and strength seems to infer that Religion is somewhat separated from, or innocent of, the atrocities that are committed to bring her evangelizing goals to fruition. It is also significant that Sor Juana gives the indigenous side a male manifestation. Whether she does this for symmetry's sake or for other reasons is unclear, but a male indigenous character, especially a noble one, destabilizes the notion of the indigenous as feminized.
Her representation of the collision between the Spanish and the indigenous world views as presented through America, Occident, Religion, and Zeal, is also hard to categorize as either pro-Spanish or pro-Aztec. When Zeal proclaims that he is a "minister of God, / Who growing weary with the sight / of overreaching tyrannies / so sinful that they reach the height / of error, practiced many years" (2:146–150), Occident counters, "What god? What sin? What tyranny? / What punishment do you forsee? / Your reasons make no sense to me … " (2:156–158), calling his form of worship "lawful" (2:163) and finally stating that "I must bow to your aggression, / but not before your arguments" (3:203–204). Later, when Religion tries to coerce America into believing her "truths," she stops Zeal from killing her and says, "It was your part to conquer her / by force with military might; / mine is to gently make her yield, / persuading her by reason's light…I want them to convert and live" (3:214–217, 226), to which America responds: "A weeping captive, I may mourn / for liberty, yet my will grows / beyond these bonds; my heart is free, / and I will worship my own gods!" (3:233–236). What these passages demonstrate is that Religion's "reason," as she calls it, is not “really” reason, but bondage, coercion, and force. The dependence of Religion upon force to achieve conversion is also apparent in the following passage when she threatens: "Since our initial offering / of peaceful terms, you held so cheap, / the dire alternative of war, / I guarantee you'll count more dear" (2:184–187). As for the presumably "unreasoned" side of this argument, Occident and America prove themselves to be extremely reasonable, pointing to their "lawful" worship and the injustice of their captivity. Furthermore, America's parting shot, that she may be bound in body, but free in spirit to worship whom she chooses, points to the inevitable failure of conversion through might.
This failure of the colonial project, if you will, is further foreshadowed by the unanimous praise "Blest be the day / when I could see / and worship the / great God of seeds" (5:497–500) at the end of the loa. Although this final praise song is preceded by Religion's careful explanation of the Eucharist: "His blessed humanity / is placed unbloody under the / appearances of bread, which comes / from seeds of wheat and is transformed / into His Body and His Blood" (4:357–361), Occident, right before the closing praise, says "I long to see / exactly how this God of yours / will give Himself as food to me" (5:486–488) which seems to indicate that there is still some confusion as to exactly which god is being worshipped in the final chorus (is the "great God of Seeds" meant to be Christ here?), as well as confusion over what exactly the difference between the Eucharist and the Aztec seed cakes really is: food or symbol. This confusion is hardly minimized by Sor Juana’s decision to seemingly highlight the parallels between the two. America describes the significance of the Aztec seed cake as follows: “...he [the great God of Seeds] feeds us with his very flesh / (first purified of every stain). / We eat his body, drink his blood, / and by this sacred meal are freed / and cleansed from all that is profane, / and thus, he purifies our soul” (1:62–66), which is barely differentiable from Religion’s explication of the Eucharist above. While Religion seems to bristle at the similarities between the two rites, demanding “...what shadowings / of truths most sacred to our Faith / do these lies seek to imitate?” (4:262–264) and asking Occident if he “...intend[s] maliciously to mock the mysteries of God?” (271–272), the fact remains that Sor Juana chooses to emphasize the two rites’ similarities, rather than downplay or dismiss them.
Furthermore, she justifies her close paralleling of the rites by comparing it to the apostle Paul’s preaching to the Athenians that their “‘Unknown God’” was really “‘...no new god, but one unknown / that you have worshipped in this place, / and it is He...’” (288–292). This last justification serves several ends. First of all, it lends her a very powerful (male) prophetic authority to declare that the god of the Aztecs is the same god as the Christian God; secondly, the ability to make that assertion inserts her into a lineage of scriptural prophetic speakers (i.e. Sor Juana’s authority is the same as that of the prophets in the scriptures, and it lends her a type of “borrowed divinity”); and lastly, this comparison to Paul’s project absolutely forecloses criticism of Sor Juana’s efforts to make parallels. To criticize Sor Juana’s project is to criticize Paul’s project, which is in turn to criticize the God-given authority by which he spoke, which is to say that criticizing Sor Juana (and thus Paul) is the same as criticizing God. Few God-fearing Catholics would dare to take the risk. Once again, Sor Juana manages to erode the distance between herself and deity.
Further ambiguities arise from Sor Juana's orientation of the play toward an indigenous audience. The play was presumably meant to be performed for the Spanish crown (Peters, "Introduction," xix), or perhaps a Spanish populace, but she deliberately presents the auto as if to an indigenous audience, through the foregrounding in the loa. In response to America and Occident's repeated statements that they wish to "see" Religion's God (4:378, 395), Religion answers: "I / shall make for you a metaphor, / a concept clothed in rhetoric / so colorful that what I show / to you, your eyes will clearly see; / for now I know that you require / objects of sight instead of words, / by which faith whispers in your ears / too deaf to hear; I understand / for you necessity demands that through the eyes, faith find her way / to her reception in your hearts" (4:401–412). While this would seem to uphold the stereotypical belief that the Aztecs needed to have religion shown to them before they could understand it,5 keep in mind that this was meant to be an auto, as part of a long history of autos that were presented each year to the Spanish populace. Could it be that Sor Juana is mocking the Spaniards' dependence upon the "teachings of the eyes" to be able to understand the "mystery" of the Eucharist? Furthermore, the metaphor presented for the America and Occident's enlightenment is precisely the auto which follows the loa, or the metaphor of Narcissus, a metaphor inflected with European, and not indigenous, cultural significance. With this gesture, casting the European audience in the trope typically applied to native peoples, Sor Juana elides the differences between the two groups, perhaps even inverts them.
While Sor Juana makes a few apologetic gestures toward the crown for her auto and its imperfections—"That you should write in Mexico / for royal patrons don't you see / to be an impropriety?" (5:443–445), "this work, however rough / and little polished it might be, / results from my obedience, / and not from any arrogance" (5:453–456),6 "I most humbly beg / forgiveness for my crude attempt, / desiring with these awkward lines / to represent the Mystery" (5:483–485)—she also justifies herself through stating (somewhat humorously): "distance can never hinder thought / with persons of intelligence, / nor seas impede exchange of sense" (5:470–472). What Sor Juana does in these few sentences is absolve herself through apology for any of the auto's theological mistakes, and places the burden of the auto’s quality and doctrinal soundness squarely upon the shoulders of those who requested it of her. She is not responsible for the auto's flaws; she is an unfit tool: "I have never thought of myself as possessing the intelligence and educational background required of a writer" (Reply, 209), and it is not her fault if those who asked who to write it erred in their choice of author, she seems to say. While the craftsmanship of both the Reply and the auto (and especially, the temerity of the subject matter of the auto) make the false humility of these self-denigrating remarks apparent, the gesture still functions to absolve her before she is even accused, either of poor craftsmanship or of shoddy doctrine. With these few remarks, she also pre-apologizes for, and at the same time justifies, her use of the Narcissus metaphor, subtly implying that she writes for persons of "intelligence" and "sense" who would both be familiar enough with the Narcissus tale to follow its parallels with the Christ story, and broad-minded enough to not be offended by the presentation of such a divine manifestation in such a patently man-made form. Thus, when Sor Juana has Zeal beg for pardon "prostrate at his royal feet / beneath whose strength two worlds are joined" (5:473–475), the "two worlds" she is referring to could just as well be the secular and the religious, as well as the colonial and the imperial, and the Mexican and the Spanish. What she seems to say is that this blend will strengthen both worlds.
The auto itself immediately follows these apologies and the chorus to the "great God of Seeds" (whoever he may be at this point in the proceedings), with the presentation of another "two worlds," the Jewish and the Gentile, who together combine to create the Narcissus metaphor (and provide the seeds for Christianity itself). The synagogue provides "…my cantor's sacred songs, / the verses of my prophets' speech” (1:138–139), and the Gentile "give[s] the language and / the form, for which you will devise another soul" (1:142–144). Thus, the Narcissus metaphor is selected by Religion in the loa, and crafted by Human Nature in the auto from materials donated by the secular and religious worlds. Again, what this blend seems to point to is Sor Juana's insistence of the compatibility of, and codependence of, these two realms. Furthermore, that she, a mere human (and a woman at that) dares to create or reconstruct the body of Christ, regardless of the materials she uses, is to risk mocking or imperfectly imitating the creative powers of God. While her apologies certainly point to her awareness of the partial failure of her creative project, the fact that she attempts it at all, and with such materials, points to her equally strong desire to bridge the chasm between the human and the divine.
The primary players in the auto are Narcissus (Christ) who falls in love with Human Nature (a woman made in His image), and Echo (Satan in female form). The plot of the auto itself is relatively simple, and follows a fairly familiar Biblical line. Echo tries to distract Narcissus from falling in love with Human Nature via various stratagems, and when those fail, she tries to make Human Nature unappealing to Narcissus by encouraging her to sin. It is of course through Echo’s own devious attempts that she fails, as part of Narcissus’/Christ’s mission is precisely to rescue Human Nature from sin: the more Human Nature sins, the more necessary it is for Narcissus to intervene for her: “Love, which can so deeply wound, / in Me has shown its potency; / and therefore, loving My reflection, / I came from heaven to die” (12:1555–1558).
While the progression of the plot itself may follow fairly Biblical lines, the decision to cast the struggle between Narcissus and Echo over Human Nature as an intensely human love triangle presents certain difficulties, even while it again illustrates Sor Juana’s blend of the human and the divine. The romanticization of the relationship between Narcissus and Human Nature, while perhaps suggestive of the bond between Catholic nuns (the “brides of Christ”; Peters, “Introduction,” xiv) and deity,7 is somewhat risky, as it semi-sexualizes, and therefore humanizes, the love Narcissus/Christ feels for humankind. This romance-ridden relationship is further complicated by the (forgive me for the use of the obvious word) narcissistic nature of Narcissus’ love for Human Nature: he loves her because she looks like him. When he worships her reflection in at the fountain, his adoration is depicted in highly sentimental and lover-like terms: “What sovereign beauty puts to flight / the sapphire of the heavenly sphere, / which blushes, seeing her pure light?...It is like a pomegranate, / blushing to reveal its secret; / a scarlet ribbon is the mouth, / parting where its lips have met” (9:1237–1240, 1257–1260). This is extremely complicated, for not only is Narcissus/Christ worshipping Human Nature in a highly sexualized fashion, but in worshipping her, he is worshipping himself in a similarly sexualized fashion. This is self-love is hardly surprising, as he is, after all, Narcissus.
The mirror relationship between Narcissus and Human Nature is another of Sor Juana’s efforts to commingle the human with the divine. Strangely enough, it is Echo who most clearly delineates the mirroring of the divine in the human. She complains that, although “a gross and churlish peasant / who’s made of lowly stuff like dirt / and common clay, which is inert” (3:449–451), Human Nature is still a threat because “His image which she mirrors back / will obligate His Deity / to yield himself to loving her / because their similarity / is like a magnet of such strength / so irresistible, that He / cannot be else but drawn to her” (461–467). Echo then tries to “break” Human Nature’s reflectiveness by encouraging her to sin (470–472), thus destroying her similarity to Narcissus. This is incredibly interesting, for it seems to imply that Human Nature, although made of lowly clay, is still capable of reflecting Narcissus’ glory until she sins. Human Nature laments: “...I posses / within my soul the image / of His face, although the swift / and constant torrent of my faults / erodes my beauty day by day...” (2:215–218) and “my evil muddy waters too, / whose darkly-colored murkiness / so separates my love from me, / so much disintegrates my soul, / so much disfigures my beauty, / so alters my lineaments, that my Narcissus, seeing them / could not discern His image there” (2:234–241). What these laments indicate is that, although disfigured by sin, Human Nature is still partially divine, still partially able to reflect the glory of Narcissus, still partially able to attract his love. Or, as she later states: “Behold, though black, yet I am fair, / because your countenance I bear” (6:950–951).
Unlike Narcissus, who loves an external manifestation of his own beauty in Human Nature, Echo worships an internal manifestation of herself. She boasts: “Self-Love, the one in me / who governs so inseparably, / makes me forget just who I am / so he can make me love myself, / ...(because the nature of Self-Love / is that he foolishly forgets / his true self, but remembers well / the false self that the mind begets)” (3:302–309). Narcissus tells Echo “do not allow / ambition to deceive you, / for only beauty, such as mine, / requires adoration” (5:804–807) when she tempts him to worship her (in similitude of the Biblical three temptations of Christ found in the fourth chapter of Matthew in the New Testament). Echo’s inability to attract Narcissus’ attention, then, is due to two factors: she wants Narcissus to worship her as she loves herself (unlike Human Nature, who wants to be loved as Narcissus loves himself), and secondly, she is unable to return any feelings of affection because all of her adoration is directed inward. She cannot reflect Narcissus’ light and glory back to himself, but can only absorb it. One of Narcissus’ other great sins is her desire to be equal to Narcissus. She bemoans: “I wished to be Narcissus’ spouse, / and I intended, in my pride, / to be enthroned at His right side, / to share his grandeur equally; / I saw no inconsistency, / and it seemed logical to me / that I, who was so beautiful, / deserved to have equality” (3:386–393). Again, her desire is not to reflect Narcissus’ glory back to him, but to take it in, and this is where she errs. It is also significant that Sor Juana casts Satan as Echo, who can never create speech, or create her space in the story, but merely pick up a pre-made part and repeat others’ words (355–356). Echo/Satan is further separated from the divine by “her” inability to create.
What are we to make of these two depictions of the possible dynamics between the human and the divine: the one which reflects and the one which absorbs? While both depictions, again, follow Biblical accounts very closely, there is something to be said for the special quality of Human Nature, who, even in sin, still reflects Narcissus’ beauty. Is this to imply that although humankind is imperfect, its members at once embody human and divine qualities? As presented in The Divine Narcissus, it would seem that Sor Juana believes this is the case. Unlike other conceptions of humankind, which view him/her as “always already” incapable of divinity because of original sin, Sor Juana seems to counter that there is in all humankind the spark of divinity. In other words, humankind is not on the opposite side of the gulf between the human and the divine, but rather occupies an amorphous space somewhere in between.
As the auto draws to a close, Sor Juana makes other references to parallel Aztec and Christian beliefs. One, Satan’s fall from grace, seems to echo the story of Huitzilopotchli’s destruction of his brothers and sisters. As Echo/Satan recounts her story: “that part whose rebellion bars / its bliss, the dissolute and the damned, / whose daring dragged to the Abyss a third part of the weeping stars” (3:347–350), one can almost see Huitzilopotchli terrorizing and destroying the four hundred stars that were his brothers and sisters (Owens, “Huitzilopotchli”; Sahagún, “The Birth of Huitzilopotchli”).
Another of these parallels is drawn between the Aztec custom of bathing as a means of purifying oneself, and the Christian rite of baptism. In the loa, Religion tells Occident that if he is “bathed / in crystal waters from the font / of baptism” (4:381–383), he will be freed from his old beliefs. Occident quickly connects this new rite of baptism with his own tradition: “...well I know, / in preparation to attend / a banquet, I must bathe, or else / our ancient custom I offend” (383–386). In turn, scene 7 of the auto elaborates how Human Nature is cleansed of sin by a virginal fountain of water. Through Sor Juana’s use of Biblical imagery: “she is the sealed fountain / of the sacred Song of Songs, / the womb of living waters / flowing out of paradise” (7:1032–1035), she suggests that the fountain is Mary, the mother of Christ. Yet what is the result of making Mary, and not Christ/Narcissus himself, the agent of Human Nature’s cleansing, as one would expect? I would suggest that by so doing, Sor Juana opens up the imagery and function of the well up to a comparison with the Aztec goddess Tlacolteotl. While Tlacolteotl was the goddess “of evil and perverseness - that is to say, lustful and debauched living” (Sahagún, “Gods and Representation,” 23), or the direct inverse of Mary, the pure and virginal mother of Christ, she also cleansed and forgave sins she had (possibly) encouraged one to commit (23–27). Tlacolteotl’s cleansing ceremony involved a cleansing with water (23–24), a chronological recitation of sins to a priest-figure (25), and a series of tasks to atone for evildoing (25–27), much like the baptism, confession, and system of penitence of the Catholic faith. Furthermore, Tlacolteotl has been associated with the water goddess Chalchiuitlicue, who is often represented with a stream of water flowing from under her throne (25).
The very end of the auto once again draws a parallel between the secular and the sacred, the indigenous and the European, the human and the divine. The tiny white flowers left in the wake of Narcissus’ death become the Holy Eucharist: “the beautiful white flower...is My Body and My Blood / which I sacrificed for you” (16:2096, 2098–2099), and the final few lines invite the characters in the auto and the audience to “worship this great sacrament, / replacing ancient sacrifice” (2142–2143). With “the beautiful white flower” Sor Juana again imposes the worldly imagery of the Narcissus tale upon the Holy Eucharist, or body of Christ, imbuing it with secular connotations. Furthermore, the Eucharist is to be viewed as a “replacement” for “ancient sacrifice,” indicating that this is not a new practice, but one that slips easily into the place left by the (forced) absence of the old (Roach, “Introduction”).
Taken together, Sor Juana’s choice of subject material and her continual, purposeful accentuation of the parallels between the two religions would seem to illustrate a deliberate effort to hurdle the gap between the original and the mimic, the European and the indigenous, the human and the divine. Throughout The Divine Narcissus, these two joint efforts strive to pull each of these dialectics closer to its opposite. Or perhaps, better stated, what Sor Juana’s auto so brilliantly illuminates are the ways in which each of these opposites exists in and through the other: there can be no conception of the original without the mimic, nor the mimic without the original; no construction of the European without the indigenous, and no indigenous without the European; and, certainly, no existence of the divine without the human, nor the human without the divine.
Notes
1. I take this phrase and its significance from the title of a book of collected essays on precisely these issues: Race, Discourse, and the Origin of the Americas: A New World View.
2. The edicts specified that indigenous people were to live separately from the Spanish. The Spanish typically lived at the very center of the cities, while the indigenous peoples were only permitted to occupy the periphery. (de landa, “Ordinance”)
3. Unless otherwise noted, all page numbers and references in this section refer to The Divine Narcissus / El Divino Narciso by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. I should also mention that several of my ideas for this section of my paper were inspired by discussions that took place on 7 December 2000 in the Performing Colonialism class at NYU's Tisch Shool of the Arts under the direction of professor Diana Taylor.
4. "Sor Philothea" has been identified as Bishop Manuel Fernández de Santa Cruz. Sor Juana had sent him a critique of a sermon delivered 40 years earlier by Antonio Vieyra, a Jesuit. The Bishop published her critique without her permission, and sent her a copy of it, along with a letter from "Sor Philothea" advising her to drop her pursuit of "humane letters." This is an excerpt from her response to his critique. (Peters 1988:x–xi)
5. This is reminiscent of the insistence of Spanish friars that the Indians only understood “through their eyes,” which justified their religious dramas. Augustin de Vetancurt, III said: "..esto [teatro religioso] instituyeron los primitivos padres, porque como los naturals no tienen más entendimiento que los ojos, les ponen a la vista los misterios para que queden en la fe más firmes…" (quoted in Williams, 11).
6. As she states in her Reply, "…I have never written except when pressured and forced to and then only to please others…" (209).
7. Narcissus calls to Human Nature to “Come, my spouse, to your beloved: / tear away your veil’s sheer: / let me see your lovely face” (9:1297–1299), which strengthens the nun/Christ comparison, but also intensifies the sexual aspect of that relationship.
Works Cited
Bhabha, Homi. "Of Mimicry and Man: The Ambivalence of Colonial Discourse," October, 28 (1984), 125–133.
Clendinnen, Inga. "A Question of Sources." In Aztecs: An Interpretation. Found at <http://hemi.nyu.edu/course-nyu/conquest/materials/text/sources.html>.
———. "Ritual: The World Transformed, the World Revealed." In Aztecs: An Interpretation. Found at <http://hemi.nyu.edu/course-nyu/conquest/materials/text/ritual.html>.Cope, R. Douglas. The Limits of Racial Domination: Plebeian Society in Colonial Mexico City, 1660–1720. University of Wisconsin Press, 1994.
Cortes, Hernan. "Second Letter." Letters from Mexico. Translated and edited by Anthony Pagden, with an Introduction by J. H. Elliott. Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1896. Found at <http://hemi.nyu.edu/course-nyu/conquest/materials/
text/cortes.html>.de la Cruz, Sor Juana Inés. The Divine Narcissus / El Divino Narciso. Translated and annotated by Patricia A. Peters and Renée Domeier, O.S.B. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1988.
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Discussion. Performing Colonialism with professor Diana Taylor. NYU. 7 December 2000.
Durán, Fray Diego. Book of the Gods and Rites and the Ancient Calendar. Translated and edited by Fernando Horcasitas and Doris Heyden. Found at
< http://hemi.nyu.edu/course-nyu/conquest/materials/text/duran.html>.Holy Bible. King James version. Found at <http://scriptures.lds.org>.
"Las Artes Escenicas en las Festivades Religiosas (1539-1818)." In Censura y Teatro Novohispano (1539–1822): Ensayos y antología de documentos. Dirigida por Maya Ramos Smith. Found at <http://hemi.nyu.edu/course-nyu/colony/materials/
text/ramos.html>.Owens, D.W. “Huitzilopotchli.” In A Small Dictionary of Pagan Gods & Goddesses. Found at <http://www.unc.edu/~reddeer/god_dess_es/aztec.html>.
Peters, Patricia A. "Introduction." In The Divine Narcissus / El Divino Narciso, translated and annotated by Patricia A. Peters and Renée Domeier, O.S.B., ix–xxxii. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1988.
Race, Discourse, and the Origin of the Americas: A New World View. Edited by Vera Lawrence Hyatt and Rex Nettleford. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995.
Roach, Joseph. “Introduction: History, Memory, and Performance.” In Cities of the Dead: circum-Atlantic Performance. New York. Columbia University Press, 1996. Found at <http://hemi.nyu.edu/course-nyu/colony/materials/text/roachch1.html>.
Sahagún, Bernardino de. "Gods and Representation." In Florentine Codex, Book 1, Part II. The School of American Research and The University of Utah. Found at <http://hemi.nyu.edu/course-nyu/conquest/materials/text/gods.html>.
———. "The Birth of Huitzilopochtli." In Florentine Codex, Book III, Chapter I. Found at <http://hemi.nyu.edu/course-nyu/conquest/materials/text/huit.html>.Taylor, Diana. Lecture. Performing Colonialism. NYU. 7 December 2000.
Williams, Jerry M. El teatro del México colonial; Época misionera. New York: P. Lang, 1992.
Early Evangelical Drama * Colonial Religious Music * Evidences of Resistance/Survial of Pre-Columbian Practices
Between God and Man: Sor Juana and The Divine Narcissus * Useful Bibliography * LinksAll images and text in this website are the exclusive property of Cathlyn A. Harris unless otherwise indicated. Please request permission prior to downloading or citing any of this material. This material is for the exclusive use of the Hemispheric Institute. Violators will be prosecuted.