belles-lettres

• belles lettres, belles-letters, belle-lettre

Borrowed from French belles-lettres (“fine writing”), 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 Latin literae humaniores.

• IPA^(key): /ˌbɛlˈlɛtɹ(ə)/

belles-lettres (uncountable)

1. (obsolete) The humanities.
2. (archaic) Literature, particularly light compositions valued for their aesthetic properties.

   Synonym: polite literature

   • a. 1854, Henry Reed, Lectures on English Literature, 1878 edition, page 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.

• belletrist
• belletristic

• "belles-lettres, n.", in the Oxford English Dictionary, 1887.