Writing: what for and from whom

Writing a novel, a screenplay, a musical score, a scientific paper or creating a visual artwork can bring a deep joy. It also involves a lot of travails, both physically and mentally. So, why do we write at all? And for whom do we write? What are the motivations and intentions of our creative work? The present volume explores these important questions. It contains the proceedings of the 6th international conference held by “Poetics and Christianity”, an interdisciplinary study forum of the School of Communication at the Pontificia Università della Santa Croce, Rome. Contributors to this book are novelists and poets, literary critics and scholars, musicians, art historians and art theorists, theologians, journalists and communicators. All deal with the writer from the perspective of the subject, and when considering the work itself, always with the “intentio auctoris” and the audience in mind. The work created is also a gift for the producers themselves. Such pleasure is truly enriching and can spark the desire to create more again. Writers and artists should absolutely save their joy at work, even during the hardships of the creative process. Ralf van Bühren is Professor of Art History at the School of Church Communications at the Pontifical University of Santa Croce, Rome. His work is focused on sacred architecture and the visual arts of Christianity, including their implications for rhetoric, religious tourism and theology. In 1994, he obtained his PhD degree in Art History at the University of Cologne. Bühren also holds a doctorate in Theology (2006) from the Pontifical University of Santa Croce. From 2014 to 2022 he was consultant to the Pontifical Council for Culture.