Literary Analysis "Philosophical Satire"

For the final of week of class I'm doing a literary analysis on the poem, "Philosophical Satire" By: Sor Juana Ines De La Cruz. From the collage of poems that I read for the reading assignment I noticed that De La Cruz's poems had a resemblance. The poems all had a deep and passionate feeling that it seemed she wanted to get out about love, understanding, or even anger. The poem, "Philosophical Satire" I think uses all three of these elements. The poem in all is the author voicing why she is upset with men and scolding men because she feels men do not take responsibility, which she thinks men throw the blame on women. Her strong emotion on the topic of men can be seen right at the get go when she says, "You foolish and unreasoning men who cast all blame on women, not seeing you yourselves are cause of the same faults you accuse: if, with eagerness unequaled you plead against women's disdain, why require them to do well when you inspire them to fall?" (263). Here the quote is showing her immediately getting straight to the point about why she is angered at men because he thinks they throw the blame at women. I thought this was a funny way of starting a poem and I'm not sure the author meant for it to be funny but in my opinion it was a great way to get a reader's attention. Another quote which shows her concentration on the subject of being angry at men is when she continues on to say, "Why then are you so alarmed by the fault that is your own? Wish women to be what you make them, or make them what you wish they were. Leave off soliciting her fall and then indeed, more justified, that eagerness you might accuse of the woman who besieges you" (264). It seems as if she is saying that men don't like how certain women turn out and she is trying to make it clear that's the man who is making her that way. It's an interesting quote because she doesn't understand why men are still quick to blame or question those women who basically act a certain way because of men's behaviour. I think that is what she means by the quote but that's what I get from reading it. This was an interesting poem to me mostly because I'm curious as to what motivated her to write this poem. Again, I also thought the way she started the poem off in a sense of anger made me more interested in why she started off so aggressive. Overall, I enjoyed the poem and even though I think it has a few different elements I would say the main element is anger because she feels very strongly about the subject and wants her opinion to be heard through her poem.

De La Cruz, Sor Juana Ines. "De La Cruz Poems." The Norton Anthology World Literature Volume D. Ed. Puchner, Martin, Suzanne Akbari, Wiebke Denecke, Vinay Dharwadker, Barbara Fuchs, Caroline Levine, Pericles Lewis, Emily Wilson. W. W. Norton & Company, pp. 262-264