belles-lettres

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   literature valued primarily for beauty, style, and imaginative expression rather than for practical information

   Her polished personal essays belong to belles-lettres rather than technical scholarship.

2. 2
   noun

   the study of literature and literary aesthetics, sometimes extended to the humanities

   The academy placed rhetoric and poetry within the province of belles-lettres.

Borrowed from French belles-lettres, literally 'fine letters,' from belles, 'beautiful or fine,' and lettres, 'letters or literature.' English has used the plural French form since the seventeenth century, usually as a mass noun. Its scope has ranged from elegant imaginative writing to literary study and the humanities more broadly.

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