What are the concerns of literature?

After hearing the assignment, my palms’ already clammy moisture increased as my brain frantically searched for any ideas at all. The assignment: What are the concerns of literature, as I understood the question in 500 words, more or less. The brilliant students to my left and right were off like a shot, clacking away as inspiration struck. But I was left sitting with 500 words to speak of the concerns of literature, concerns that authors have been expressing for thousands of years, and I was left wordless.

So being the simplistic writer that I am, I decided to return to the basics. Literature: written words used to form series of raising anticipation and then fulfilling anticipation was the first definition that came to mind. But literature is not just any written words of mediocre standard tossed across a page, rather literature has higher expectations. Choice of word, quality, and excellence of form create the backbone of literature. But the concern, the meat, the thought behind the words is what remains relevant and applicable, connecting the past to the future.

And yet, what are these concerns? How could ideas from before the 16^th century still hold the power and potency so as to be reformulated, revisited, and renewed in piece after piece of literature? Why are we so captivated by these concerns making them worth such time, effort, and excellence? As I questioned this importance, a conclusion began to form that, perhaps, these concerns expressed in literature are also the life and concerns of humanity. Love and suffering, sorrow and joy, new birth and death, these cycles of life connect all humanity across time as homo-sapiens and creations of God, who have or will experience life. Time doesn’t matter as relevance continues. Literature mimics us, as we search for meaning and quest for purpose, deal with injustices and make choices. Literature is an expression of people, with our concerns in step with literature’s concerns; though the latter’s concerns happen to be expressed in written form with elegant clarity.

Yet, then I questioned how complete is literature’s imitation of our struggles?  How far do the concerns of literature lie? Can any words ever truly describe the emotions of a sister as she watches her brother’s body pulled from the shore? Or the joy of a new mother as she hears the first cries of her baby? Or the anguish of a pastor at the funeral of his son, not knowing whether it was suicide or an accident? So perhaps the concerns of literature are when mere men and women try to put to words humanity’s questions, joys, and struggles. We write of what we know to share our experience through prose, verse, fiction or non-fiction; emotions are passed. Guilt, as an example, can be found throughout literature concerns in Oedipus as he gouges out his eyes or found in Macbeth’s wife washes her hands again and again desperate to wash away inner the bloodstain. Shakespeare, Steinbeck, Hemmingway, Twain, Milton and the countless artists of words as they crafted their works, chose to attempt expressing and so sharing in a human experience. And although, few solutions are given or questions answered, the reader has experienced, shared, and empathized with another’s life, whether fictitious or real.      

So what are the concerns of literature in 500 words more or less? The concern of literature is humanity.