In her wonderful book, Approaches to the Theory of Freedom in Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Virginia Aspe produces a groundbreaking presentation of Sor Juana’s theory of freedom with productive scholarship on the Coimbran Jesuit tradition and Renaissance Humanism in Latin America. In this paper, I center on Aspe’s interpretation of two of Sor Juana’s major works, First Dream, in which a disembodied dreaming soul rises into the nighttime sky in an attempt to take in and understand the universe, and Critique of a Sermon, in which Sor Juana lays out counter-arguments to the Jesuit preacher Antonio Vieira’s designation of the greatest demonstration of Christ’s love and its implications for human freedom and God’s grace. My goal is to supplement and sometimes critique the interpretations endorsed by Aspe so as to ultimately enrich Aspe’s key insights into Sor Juana’s philosophical views. Ultimately, I first argue that Aspe’s Aristotelian interpretation of First Dream is necessary but not sufficient for understanding Sor Juana’s poem, which requires the inclusion 15th and 16th century Neoplatonism. Secondly, I argue that in her interpretation of Critique of a Sermon Aspe misattributes a view to Sor Juana that belongs to Antonio Vieira, which requires a small tweak to her theory of Sor Juana’s views on freedom and human moral psychology.

在她精彩的著作《Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz 中的自由理论方法》中，Virginia Aspe 以对科英布兰耶稣会传统和拉丁美洲文艺复兴人文主义的富有成效的学术研究，对 Sor Juana 的自由理论进行了开创性的介绍。在本文中，我将重点关注 Aspe 对 Sor Juana 的两部主要作品的诠释，First Dream，其中一个无形的做梦的灵魂升入夜空，试图吸收和理解宇宙，以及Critique of a Sermon，其中 Sor Juana 对耶稣会传教士安东尼奥·维埃拉（Antonio Vieira）提出的反驳论点，他认为这是基督之爱的最伟大体现，以及它对人类自由和上帝恩典的影响。我的目标是补充并有时批评 Aspe 认可的解释，以最终丰富 Aspe 对 Sor Juana 哲学观点的关键见解。最后，我首先认为，阿斯佩对第一个梦的亚里士多德式解释对于理解索尔·胡安娜的诗是必要的，但还不够，这需要包含 15 世纪和 16 世纪的新柏拉图主义。其次，我认为在她对《布道批判》的解释中Aspe 错误地将属于 Antonio Vieira 的 Sor Juana 的观点归因于 Sor Juana，这需要对她关于 Sor Juana 对自由和人类道德心理学的观点的理论进行一些调整。