Placebo Effects: Flattery and Antifeminism in Chaucer's Merchant's Tale and the Tale of Melibee

Chaucer's Tale of Melibee and Merchant's Tale both draw on the work of the jurist Albertanus of Brescia, and both are concerned with the overlapping discourses of marriage, gender, and political counsel. This essay argues that while Melibee uses gender difference to theorize the practice of good counsel and to regulate the lordly self, the Merchant's Tale offers a more cynical revision of the same themes as it explores how counsel is corrupted by flattery and selfishness. The debate over January's marriage illustrates the close connections between antifeminism and bad counsel, and the rhetorical pleasure provided by the flattering counselor Placebo turns out to be as important as the sexual pleasure January supposedly seeks in a wife. By the end of the tale, however, the vices of flattery and bad counsel are displaced onto feminine figures such as May and Fortune, allowing January to preserve his distorted self-regard and the illusion of masculine community.