Leer el libro desde sus paratextos

Through the examination of a large number of books printed between the 16th and 18th centuries on both sides of the Atlantic, this study explores the relationship between paratexts and literary texts of the most important authors of New Spain. The present study focuses on the analysis of literary paratexts that formed part of the preliminary section of printed books and were structured around certain rhetorical devices and topics. Approvals, prologues, dedications, and laudatory poems are seen in relation to the literary text they precede—and to which they refer—as powerful generators of discourse, allowing us to understand the intricate relationship between literary circles and the institutions that held power in New Spain. Studied first in isolation, and then collectively in the preliminaries of the works of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, these literary paratexts reveal the processes of censorship, literary criticism, and social legitimation that determined the creation and dissemination of written literature in New Spain.