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

Singer, Professor Julie

 
9780226838014: Out of the Mouths of Babes: Infant Voices in Medieval French Literature
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0226838013 ISBN 13: 9780226838014
Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2025

Synopsis

A wide-ranging study of the rich questions raised by speaking infants in medieval French literature.
 
Medieval literature is full of strange moments when infants (even fetuses) speak. In Out of the Mouths of Babes, Julie Singer explores the unsettling questions raised by these events, including What is a person? Is speech fundamental to our humanity? And what does it mean, or what does it matter, to speak truth to power?

Singer contends that descriptions of baby talk in medieval French literature are far from trivial. Through treatises, manuals, poetry, and devotional texts, Singer charts how writers imagined infants to speak with an authority untainted by human experience. What their children say, then, offers unique insight into medieval hopes for universal answers to life’s deepest wonderings.

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About the Author

Julie Singer is professor of French at Washington University in St. Louis. She is the author of two books, including Representing Mental Illness in Late Medieval France: Machines, Madness, Metaphor.

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Publisher
University of Chicago Press
Publication date
2025
Language
English
ISBN 10 
0226838013
ISBN 13 
9780226838014
Binding
Hardcover
Edition number
1
Number of pages
328