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Belles-lettres Belles-lettres or belles lettres is a term that is used to describe a category of writing. A writerof belles-lettres is a belletrist . However, the boundaries of that category vary in differentusages.

Literally, belles-lettres is a French phrase meaning "beautiful" or "fine" writing. In this sense,therefore, it includes all literary works especially fiction , poetry , drama , or essays valuedfor their aesthetic !ualities and originality of style and tone . he term thus can be used torefer to literature generally. he Nuttall Encyclopedia , for e#ample, described belles-lettres asthe "department of literature which implies literary culture and belongs to the domain of art,whatever the sub$ect may be or the special form% it includes poetry, the drama, fiction, andcriticism," while the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition describes it as "the moreartistic and imaginative forms of literature, as poetry or romance, as opposed to more

pedestrian and e#act studies." &'(

However, for many modern purposes, belles lettres is used in a narrower sense to identifyliterary works that do not fall into other ma$or categories, such as fiction, poetry or drama.

hus, it would include essays, récits , published collections

of speeches and letters , satirical and humorous writings, and other miscellaneous works.he Oxford English Dictionary )*nd +dition says that "it is now generally applied )whenused at all to the lighter branches of literature." he term remains in use among librariansand others who have to classify books- while a large library might have separate categoriesfor essays, letters, humor and so forth )and most of them are assigned different codes in, fore#ample, the ewey decimal classification system , in libraries of modest si/e they are oftenall grouped together under the heading belles lettres .

he phrase is sometimes used in a derogatory manner when speaking about the study ofliterature- those who study rhetoric often deride many language departments )particularly+nglish departments in the +nglish0speaking world for focusing on the aesthetic !ualities oflanguage rather than its practical application. A !uote from 1rian 2utton3s articlein Language and Learning Across the Disciplines , "4riting in the isciplines, First05ear6omposition, and the 7esearch 8aper", serves to illustrate the rhetoricians 3 opinion on thissub$ect and their use of the term-

4riting0in0the0disciplines adherents, well aware of the wide range of academic genres a first0year composition student may have to deal with in the future, are unlikely to force thosestudents to venture so deeply into any one genre as to re!uire slavish imitation. he onlyfirst0year composition teachers likely to demand "conformity and submission" to a particularkind of academic discourse are those +nglish0department fi#tures, the evangelical disciplesof literature, professors whose goal in first0year composition is to teach students toe#plicate belles lettres . 4riting0in0the0disciplines adherents, unlike teachers of literature0as0composition, generally recogni/e the folly of forcing students to conform to the conventionsof a discourse community they have no desire to $oin.

In his Ele ents of !riticis , prominent 2cottish01ritish belles lettres rhetorician Lord9ames )':;:

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'>@@ , states in Lectures on "hetoric and Belles Lettres , "taste is foundational to rhetoric andnecessary for successful spoken and written discourse." & (

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