exico). Balbuena had a strong descriptive faculty, but
his work lacked restraint (cf. _Grandeza mexicana_, Mex.,
1604; Madrid, 1821, 1829 and 1837; N.Y., 1828; Mex.,
1860). The great dramatist, Juan Ruiz de Alarcon
(1581?-1639), was born and educated in Mexico; but as he
wrote in Spain, and his dramas are Spanish in feeling, he
is best treated as a Spanish poet.

Next only to Avellaneda the most distinguished
Spanish-American poetess is the Mexican nun, Sor Juana
Ines de la Cruz (1651-1695), whose worldly name was Juana
Ines de Asbaje y Ramirez de Cantillana. Sor Juana had
intellectual curiosity in an unusual degree and early
began the study of Latin and other languages. When still a
young girl she became a maid-in-waiting in the viceroy's
palace, where her beauty and wit attracted much page 309
attention; but she soon renounced the worldly life of the
court and joined a religious order. In the convent of San
Jeronimo she turned for solace to books, and in time she
accumulated a library of four thousand volumes. Upon being
reproved by a zealous bishop for reading worldly books,
she sold her entire library and gave the proceeds to the
poor. Sor Juana's better verses are of two kinds: those
that give evidence of great cleverness and mental
acuteness, and those that have the ring of spontaneity and
sincerity. As an exponent of erotic mysticism, she is most
interesting. In the most passionate of her erotic verses
there is an apparent sincerity which makes it difficult
for the lay reader to believe that she had not been
profoundly influenced by human love,--as when she gives
expression to the feelings of a loving wife for a dead
husband, or laments the absence of a lover or tells of a
great jealousy. In addition to her lyrics Sor Juana wrote
several _autos_ and dramas. Her poems were first published
under the bombastic title of _Inundacion castalida de la
unica poetisa, Musa decima, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz_,
Madrid, 1689 (vol. II, Seville, 1691; vol. III, Madrid,
1700).

During the first half of the eighteenth century the
traditions of the preceding century persisted; but in the
second half there came the neo-classic reaction. Among the
best of the prosaic poets of the century are: Miguel de
Reyna Zeballos (_La elocuencia del silencio_, Madrid,
1738); Francisco Ruiz de Leon (_Hernandia_, 1755, based on
the _Conquista de Mexico_ by Solis); and the priest Jorge
Jose Sartorio (1746-1828: _Poesias sagra