Glossary entry

Spanish term or phrase:

solar (in a religious context)

English translation:

(it is of the same) lineage / origin

Added to glossary by Evan Tomlinson
Oct 5, 2015 21:58
8 yrs ago
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Spanish term

solar (in a religious context)

Spanish to English Social Sciences Religion
Context: "¿Llevar una opinión contraria de Vieyra fue en mi avenimiento, y no lo fue en su paternidad llevada contra los tres Santos Padres de la Iglesia? Mi entendimiento tal cual ¿no es tan libre como el suyo, pues viene de un *solar*?

The document is a book about Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, a mexican nun of the 17th century; here she is justifying her refusal to obey a bishop.

I have checked Proz glossaries, but everything seems to be about land or uses "solar" as an adjective equivalent in English. Same goes for Google searches.
Proposed translations (English)
4 +2 (it is of the same) lineage / origin

Proposed translations

+2
17 mins
Selected

(it is of the same) lineage / origin

"Origin" would be a more "ordinary" way of putting it, but I would tend to go for "lineage", which captures the tone more accurately, I think.

The meaning of "solar" here is:

"1. m. Casa, descendencia, linaje noble. Su padre venía del solar de Vegas."

Or as the first RAE dictionary puts it in 1739:

"Significa también el suelo de la casa antigua, de donde descienden los hombres nobles".

So by using this word Sor Juana is really suggesting that her mind is as "noble" as the bishop's. It's quite a challenging way of putting it. They are both human spirits, and as such, they are equal.

You might almost say "of the same pedigree".

This has been translated "as both come from the same house". That would be OK, though as I say I think it would be nice to preserve the echo of noble descent.


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Note added at 18 mins (2015-10-05 22:17:32 GMT)
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Sorry; in the last paragraph I meant to say "from the same source". I think this is the same reference that Ana has quoted:
https://books.google.es/books?id=NcCnAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA344&lpg=P...

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Note added at 10 hrs (2015-10-06 08:13:54 GMT)
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I think the alternative interpretation, cited by Bea, is mistaken. It apparently interprets "es un de solar" as meaning approximately "it is innate" (and God-given).

According to Dufort, Sor Juana's argument is that "no había elegido esta desgraciada habilidad sino que por el contrario, como ella misma lo presenta, había nacido con dicha carga". I find hard to see how she has derived this idea from the text. By "habilidad" Dufort means "don", a special ability that Sor Juana possesses, and that did not choose but it obliged to use. I see nothing in the text to support this. Sor Juana is not claiming any special ability (actually I think she did consider herself cleverer than her Jesuit adversaries, but she's not saying that here). She is merely claiming to possess the same mental freedom as anyone else, and specifically the same mental freedom as Vieyra.

Linguistically, "es de un solar" would be a very strange way of saying "it is innate"; in fact, I don't think it can mean that. "Un solar" would mean one particular "solar", one particular origin. If she had written "es de solar", she might have meant "it is part of my heritage". But she didn't. "Solar" is origin in relation to lineage and descent. It's not a word that would normally be used to refer to innate qualities or faculties.

"De un solar" could very well imply "de un mismo solar" or "de un solo solar", in much the same way as we say "Cristo es de una sustancia con Dios", for example, meaning "de una misma sustancia" or "de una sola sustancia". Similarly, we say in English "of one substance". "De un solar", in this interpretation, means "of one lineage". So she is saying that her mind (entendimiento) is "of one lineage" with Vieyra's, taking "con el suyo" as understood. Linguistically this is perfectly normal seventeenth-century usage.

And this is surely what she's talking about here. Of course Sor Juana, like any Christian, would have accepted that her mental faculties were God-given, attributes of her soul, which is of divine origin. But here she is emphasising freedom. By this she does not mean licence; she means freedom to interpret religious matters within the teaching of the Church. And the crux is that she is claiming the same freedom to do so as Vieyra.

The whole passage is built on a comparison between what she is accused of and what Vieyra himself has done, and it is highly aggressive towards Vieyra. She accuses him of monumental presumption, of equating his opinions with the principles of the Faith, requiring blind obedience. If the Church allows me to express my view, who is he to forbid me? If I am blamed for disagreeing with him, why is he not blamed for disagreeing with the Fathers of the Church? My "entendimiento" is as free as his. The statement "[mi entendimiento] es un de solar" is offered to support the proposition that "es tan libre como el suyo": it refers to her equality with him, equality of freedom to interpret within the Faith, freedom to disagree with him.

In the light of all this, it seems to me that the linguistic and contextual arguments all firmly support the reading of "un" as "un mismo" or "un solo", and militate against Dufort's reading (as far as I can understand it).
Peer comment(s):

neutral Beatriz Ramírez de Haro : No estoy de acuerdo con la traducción propuesta. Sor Juana no dice ni "both" ni "the same" (diría "pues vienen del mismo solar") sino que se refiere a su propio entendimiento en singular. Me inclino por la interpretación de Dufort que copio en mi ref
48 mins
Gracias, Bea :) Es posible; pero no me convence, porque creo que diría "viene de solar". "De un solar" es una forma normal de decir "de un solo/mismo solar" en el español del XVII. La base de su afirmación es comparativa (tan libre como el suyo).
agree neilmac : Cf: "solera"...
9 hrs
I don't know if the words are related, but I think that's the idea, yes. Thanks, Neil :)
agree franglish
9 hrs
Thanks, franglish :)
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4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Again, Charles, thank you for your well-argued answer. In my context I am translating "pues viene de un solar?" as "since it is equally noble", following loosely your suggestion of "of the same pedigree"."

Reference comments

13 mins
Reference:

I found this

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44 mins
Reference:

solar

Esta es la primera acepción del DRAE:
solar1.
(De suelo).
1. m. Casa, descendencia, linaje noble.
http://lema.rae.es/drae/?val=solar

Equivale a decir que su entendimiento es un don que le viene dado de nacimiento o "de cuna".

Copio este extracto del estudio de Lucía Dufort "El feminismo de Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz"

"¿Llevar una opinión contraria de Vieyra fue en mí atrevimiento, y
no lo fue en su Paternidad llevarla contra los tres Santos Padres de la Iglesia? Mi entendimiento tal cual ¿no es tan libre como el suyo, pues viene de un solar? ¿Es alguno de los principios de la Santa Fe, revelados, su opinión, para que la hayamos de creer a ojos cerrados? (Respuesta a Sor Filotea: 83 y 85).

Aquí Sor Juana hace referencia a lo divino para argumentar por su derecho a disentir de Vieyra. Este argumento es sólido ya que implicaría que Sor Juana no había elegido esta desgraciada habilidad sino que por el contrario, como ella misma lo presenta, había nacido con dicha carga. Por consiguiente, renunciar a este don significaría ir en contra de lo divino, de lo natural y sería ir contra la voluntad de Dios."
://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:472769/FULLTEXT01.pdf
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