D. Vance Smith. “Institutions.”

D. Vance Smith. “Institutions.” Oxford Twenty-First Century Approaches to Literature: Middle English. Edited by Paul Strohm. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007. Print.

In his essay, D. Vance Smith focuses on the nature of institutions, as constantly self perpetuating, encompassing the individual to their larger beings, and in operating in, through, and with the institution of writing and the literary. D. Vance Smith opens his discussion on the matter with a consideration of mortuary guilds, organizations that allowed individual members to be part of a larger entity, where care for a passing member, in supporting the institution  amounts to care for themselves as they are subsumed into the institutional existence. Part of the problem for scholars considering the role of institutions, suggests Smith, is that the texts considered, as well as the writing about and presenting on said texts, are all contained within the literary institution, making it difficult to consider how a particular piece of writing, historical artifact, or school of thought operated outside of its own institution. 

D. Vance Smith further points out that the Middle Ages itself is heavily contained within various expanding spheres of institutional influence, even in the literary . Considering the role of religion as an institution, Smith argues that late medieval culture is largely founded on, or at the very least heavily impacted by, the Bible, a book that is itself an institution that requires its followers to both follow its tenants and to perpetuate it as an institution through spreading the gospel. Smith then moves on to use Chaucer's House of Fame as an example of a literary institution that is self regulating, instituting (now he has me doing it) controls over the literary forms that are represented or dismissed in the text. Smith even places the abrupt ending, or rather the lack thereof, as part of that control in action. Smith's essay closes with a consideration of the "institutional logic of logic," tracing some of the history and context behind the academic institutions of criticism and scholarship in the humanities. 

As with every piece I've read from D. Vance Smith, the ideas he presents are incredibly interesting and useful in considering both late medieval texts as well as the act of doing so. Additionally, as with the other critical work I've read from Smith, the ideas also take some time to absorb, and in the end I'm never entirely certain I've fully sucked the marrow from the essay at hand. Regardless, even the outlying tidbits I extract are always interesting and useful, and this essay certainly fits in well with my consideration of medieval economic thought, itself a burgeoning institution as well as contained within the institution (primarily) of theological writings, and considering how scholars work within their areas of interest and the institutions that they accordingly build.