"Al jardín del convento": Sor Marcela de San Félix's Natural Theology

Abstract: This article analyzes the poem "Al jardín del convento," by Sor Marcela de San Félix (1605–88) from the perspective of plant studies. Sor Marcela, a cloistered nun, inverts the conventional tropes of the sonnet tradition that utilize floral metaphors to laud female beauty, deploying the same flowers to describe the body of her spiritual husband Christ. Sor Marcela's poem draws on the tenets of natural theology, which encourages the human observer to contemplate God and divine order through a close examination of the natural world that draws moral lessons from plants and animals. In doing so, Sor Marcela ascribes emotion and intention to the garden plants, and ultimately describes herself as one among them. By identifying with plants, the female poetic voice can speak with authority within a dominant patriarchal theological discourse by claiming unity with the divine. I argue that the discourse of natural theology allowed female authors to overcome women's association with corporeality to speak from the genderless soul. Moreover, Sor Marcela's engagement with botanical worlds reflects the influence of scientific views of plants found in vernacular translations of Pedanius Dioscorides's De materia medica . Despite her protestations of humility and insignificance, Sor Marcela's work demonstrates engagement with contemporary theoretical debates regarding the nature of plants.