Queer and feminist: Sor Juana and Audre Lorde queering inclusivity

This thesis focuses on the Mexican writer SorJuana Ines de la Cruz (1648/51-1695) and the American writer Audre Lorde (1934-1992). It examines their similarities and differences in the context of their critical work and poetry. In doing so, I will use each of their critical works to examine their own respective poetry and each other's. This kind of self and other comparison illuminates how each of them fought for marginalized peoples' rights. For Sor Juana, these marginalized people were women in colonial Mexico. In addition to asserting women's rights to superior education, Sor Juana wanted women's education and intelligence to be valued in her socio-political climate as equal to men's. For Lorde, these marginalized folks were lesbians and people of color, particularly Black women and Black people facing oppression. Lorde used her poetry to examine and critique her current political climate and a eurocentric, heterosexist society. Although occupying radically different spaces in time, each woman used her writing voice via poetry and critical texts to critique a patriarchal society which devalued women's voices and intelligence.