Clarinda

Clarinda was the pen name used by an anonymous Peruvian poet, generally assumed to be a woman, who wrote in the early 17th century. The only work attributed to her is the long poem Discourse in Praise of Poetry (Discurso en loor de la poesía), which was printed in Seville in 1608. She is one of very few female, Spanish-speaking colonial-period poets whose work has not been lost. Thus, she is often read in partnership with Mexico's Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and fellow Peruvian "Amarilis", whose identity is also uncertain.

Identity and early life Because she wrote under a pen name, and because no documentation definitively affirms her existence, Clarinda's identity is at best enigmatic. Her gender is itself a source of debate, though literary scholars like Georgina Sabat de Rivers and Raquel Chang-Rodríguez have isolated in Clarinda's poetry what they believe is a distinctly female voice.

Clarinda was born in the latter half of the 16th Century and was likely a member of the criollo caste, therefore of pure Spanish ancestry, born in the Spanish colonies. Her writing, which depends heavily on Greek and Biblical allusions, indicates that she was well read and educated. With few exceptions, women under Spanish colonial rule were not encouraged to write, and women who did write typically learned to do so on their own Fear of rejection or persecution may have been what prompted Clarinda to adopt a pseudonym.

However, restrictions on women interested in literature were looser in the colonies than in Europe, and Clarinda seems to have been granted access to the literary circles in colonial Peru. She may herself have been a member of this society. The notes accompanying the poem indicate that its author is a "señora principal" (foremost lady) in Peru who requested that her work be published under the pen name Clarinda.

Mexía de Fernangil was a Spaniard but had lived for a time in the viceroyalties of Mexico and Peru, and in Lima he was a member of the Academia Antártica, which perhaps explains Clarinda's association with him. Discourse in Praise of Poetry is the only poem credited to Clarinda, though commentators have suggested that it was penned by the same woman who wrote the Epístola a Bernardo, published in 1621, which is typically attributed to the anonymous poet known as "Amarilis".

Thus far, no English-language translation of the poem has been published.

Sample In Petrarchan fashion, and following the literary trends of early 17th Century Spanish colonial literature, Clarinda invokes mythological figures, such as Apollo, the Muses, and Orpheus, in her verses:

The hand and favor of Cyrene, whom Apollo loved tenderly; and Hippocrene's consecrated water

and that lyre with which, from Avernus, Orpheus liberated his sweet wife, suspending the rages of Hell;

the renowned wonderful harmony of he whose [testudo] could do so much, who gave walls to Thebes the famous;

the smooth conversation, full of weeping, and in single voice, that protected Jupiter, and whiled away and frightened Juno;

the verse that Homer eternalized, that he wrote for strong Achilles, and in that vein with which he recited it,

I would that you arrive, my Muse, so that in solemn and sublime verse you will sing in praise of poetry. (1-18)

Legacy Clarinda's Discourse in Praise of Poetry has, in the more than three centuries since its publication, become one of Peru's most lauded texts. It is "one of the most celebrated products of the Academia Antártica",

Feminist responses The fact that Clarinda, probably a woman, composed and even published poetry despite widespread disdain for female writers in colonial Spanish America is typically depicted by feminist critics as a story of personal triumph via autodidacticism. The poem also catalogues, mostly through allusions, an arresting number of female "savants and writers from a variety of traditions and historical periods". Many critics interpret this list as Clarinda's attempt to create a space for female voice within the male-dominated genre of colonial lyric poetry.