SOURCE: Leicester, H. Marshall, Jr. “Of a Fire in the Dark: Public and Private Feminism in The Wife of Bath's Tale.” Women's Studies 11, nos. 1-2 (1984): 157-78.

In the following essay, Leicester develops a theory of the outward feminism of The Wife of Bath's Tale and the private, insecure aspects of Alisoun's psyche that are unconsciously included in her female-empowered Tale. Leicester also asserts that Alisoun's Tale represents Chaucer's growing appreciation of feminist ideas.

The Wife of Bath's Tale is not only a text concerned with the position of women, it is a text whose speaker is a woman and a feminist—at least that is the fiction the text offers—and the body of this essay will concentrate on the Wife herself as the speaker of her Tale. While my own prejudices, for better or for worse, will no doubt be evident from what follows, I do not...