Belles-lettres

Pronunciation

• IPA: en, /ËŒbÉ›lˈlÉ›tɹ/

Alternative forms

• belles lettres
• belles-letters
• belle-lettre

Origin

Borrowed from , a parallel construction with the beaux arts ("fine arts"). Littré considered the belles-lettres to embrace grammar, rhetoric, and poetry. Sense embracing all of the humanities under the influence of .

Noun

1. (obsolete) The humanities.
2. (archaic) Literature, particularly light compositions valued for their aesthetic properties.
• Henry Reed in the 1878 ed. of Lectures on English Literature, p. 34:That vapid, half naturalized term ‘belles-lettres,’ which has had some currency as a substitute for the term ‘literature.’
3. (archaic) Literary studies, particularly literary aesthetics.

Related terms

• belletristic