First Sentence

"The Wife of Bath has sometimes been read as the epitome of a modern feminist, insofar as she claims that experience is the ground of her authority (thus reversing the hierarchy which devalues 'feminine' experience and privileges 'masculine' authority), takes on the men at their own game of name-dropping (for she does, in fact, flesh out her argument with references to some of the most important medieval authorities), and refuses to be silenced by the patriarchal powers-that-be."