Why Sor Juana?

One thing I've been struggling with in composing my translations is balancing the tone of the text, because Sor Juana is a poet from the 17th century and her works both reflect that and yet have many undertones that are absolutely relevant to the modern day, and so my issue (or one of them at least) is how much of the modern I should play up, and how much I should stay faithful to the time and place in which Sor Juana wrote. I honestly don't know where to draw the lines between a translation, an adaptation, and a piece that is so far from the original that it is really only a basic influence.

You may ask why  I chose a 17th century poet, and to be honest, it was a happy accident. I was taking a Latin American Literature course (which I actually ended up dropping due to conflicts. Class schedules are a dificult thing after all). Nevertheless, before I dropped the class I stuck to the schedule, where we read a sample from a different author every few days. One of those authors was Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. That same week, we started our practical portion of my Literary Translation course, and so I decided to translate her works on a whim at the time.

It is said that translation is the most intimate form of reading, and I find that to be very true in my case. Once I started translating Sor Juana, I fell in love with her in a way. If this were a purely motivational blog I would say something like "And the rest is history."

But isn't the case here.

Life goes on and sometimes I wonder, about a lot of things really, but I admit that sometimes I wonder if it is worth it all. I wonder if what I do will matter and then of course my thoughts wander towards oblivion and the inevitable heat-death of the universe, so I have to scale things back and think about what mattering means to me. And when I consider that I realize that what I want most is to be happy and bring happiness to others. If I can do that, if my life can make other lives better, then I want to do so. And that is why I want to translate Sor Juana, because I find that with her I am happier, and I want to share that with others.

Cheers,

Talia