| Dictionary, Encyclopedia and Thesaurus - The Free Dictionary 1,520,816,616 visitors served. |
|
Dictionary/ thesaurus | Medical dictionary | Legal dictionary | Financial dictionary | Acronyms | Idioms | Encyclopedia | Wikipedia encyclopedia | ? |
belles-lettres |
Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Wikipedia | 0.09 sec. |
|
belles-lettres (bĕl-lĕ`trə) [from the French for literature, literally "fine letters"], literature that is appreciated for the beauty, artistry, and originality of its style and tone rather than for its ideas and informational content. Earlier the term was synonymous with literature, referring particularly to fiction, poetry, drama, criticism, and essays. However, belletristic literature has come to mean light, artificial writing and essays extolling the beauties of literature. belles-lettres literary works, esp essays and poetry, valued for their aesthetic rather than their informative or moral content How to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us, add a link to this page, add the site to iGoogle, or visit webmaster's page for free fun content. |
|
| ? Mentioned in | ? References in periodicals archive | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Foster attacks the former, Baker the latter, each making more or less the same point about liberalish belletrism catering to an essentially anti-artistic vulgus, although Baker does so with considerably more rhetorial elan: "Schjeldahl is often involved in baiting the anti-intellectualism of the public that Hal highlighted earlier. |
| Encyclopedia |
| Free Tools: |
For surfers:
Browser extension |
Word of the Day |
Help
For webmasters: Free content | Linking | Lookup box | Double-click lookup | Partner with us |
|---|