belles-lettres

Meaning

Noun

• The humanities.
• Literature, particularly light compositions valued for their aesthetic properties.
• Literary studies, particularly literary aesthetics.

Origin

• Borrowed from French belles-lettres ("fine writing"), a parallel construction with the beaux 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.