Sor Juana’s Rhetoric of Silence This essay illuminates the place of seventeenth-century Mexican nun Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz in the history and theory of rhetoric. I examine rhetorics of si- lence and interruption in La respuesta, Sor Juana’s most well-known prose piece and an autobiographical polemic that preceded her actual silence in the face of disapproving Church authorities. By insisting that silence is something to listen for and demanding that rhetors underscore their use of silence by “naming” it, Sor Juana theorizes about silence as a persuasive entity and provides an early instance of a nondominant, protofeminist, New World rhetoric. The works of seventeenth-century nun and author Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648–1695) enjoy canonical status in Spanish and Latin American circles, yet remain largely unknown in English studies. 1 The inclusion of Sor Juana’s La respuesta in at least two recent compilations of texts in the history of rhetoric can be attributed to feminist scholarship of the past twenty-five years, research that has contributed substantially to our understanding of her rhetorical skill. 2 Yet few have explicitly looked to Sor Juana as a source for rhetorical theory. In other words, she is sometimes viewed as a rhetor but rarely as a rhetorician. Yet as a prolific writer of poetry, drama, and prose (much of which was commis- sioned by both religious and state authorities of New Spain), she was necessarily adept in political rhetoric. And, although she is self-taught, her work reveals her knowledge of the classical rhetorical works of Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian, and quite possibly Plato. Though she confines her overt definition of rhetoric to the conventionally narrow “figures, tropes, and locutions,” her writings are fun- damentally concerned with the problems of language, the constrictions imposed by discourse, and the provision and acquisition of literacy in her multilingual so- ciety—all concerns of rhetoric (The Answer/La respuesta 53). 3 This essay aims to illuminate the place of Sor Juana in the history and theory of rhetoric, using feminist methodology to “extrapolate” Sor Juana’s rhetorical theory from her seemingly nonrhetorical statements and activities (Ratcliffe 4). A more complete understanding of this important figure will contribute toward a fuller picture of American (in the continental sense) discursive traditions. Rhetoric Review, Vol. 25, No. 1, 5–21 Copyright © 2006, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. 5 JULIE A. BOKSER DePaul University