West of Paradise. Stars Factory and Res Publica: Limits of History in Sigüenza and Góngora Literature

límites de la historia en la literatura de Sigüenza y Góngora

Abstract

When commissioned to write the chronicle of the foundation of the Real Convento de Jesús María de México in Parayso occidental (1684), Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora (1645-1700) can't but account for other things and people that, in their diversity, show the complex and borderline space where convent and writing converge. In that theological and political space, in that delicate but matrix limit, the problem appears not only of History's conditions and its writing (problems about the archive), but also of literature's possibilities and its limitations (problems about testimony). Because where public and not public, fact and conjecture, body and language, people and kings, heaven and earth intertwine, the simple story of a convent and its nuns leads to the less simple story of those things and people that make History and, more importantly, of those things and people that –in its borders– can or can not be a part of it.