'Put Treasures in my Mind': Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and Sor Teresa de Cartagena"

Abstract

This article aims to show the resemblances that we can find between Admiraçión operum Dey written by Teresa de Cartagena in the mid-XVth century and Respuesta de sor Filotea de la Cruz written by sor Juana Inés de la Cruz two hundred years later. Both works are two epistles where the female´s intellectual capacity to know and to write is defended by a nun who was received critized for a former work. The religious Teresa de Cartagena –converse bishop Pablo Cartagena's granddaughter– wrote a moral essay that surprised male readers who considered that the text was a plagiarism. On the other hand, the hieronymite sister sor Juana Inés was reproached by a clergyman for having written the polemic treatise on theology Carta Atenagórica.