Out of the Mouths of Babes: Infant Voices in Medieval French Literature

Join us in celebrating Julie Singer’s new book, Out of the Mouths of Babes: Infant Voices in Medieval French Literature. Medieval texts are full of startling moments when infants — and even fetuses — speak. Singer explores the profound questions these moments raise: What is a person? Is speech fundamental to our humanity? And what does it mean to speak truth to power? Drawing on treatises, manuals, poetry, and devotional texts, she shows how medieval writers imagined infants speaking with a unique authority, offering insight into society’s deepest hopes and wonderings.