Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun plural Literature regarded for its aesthetic value rather than its didactic or informative content.
- noun plural Light, stylish writings, usually on literary or intellectual subjects.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Polite or elegant literature: a word of somewhat indefinite application, including poetry, fiction, and other imaginative literature, and the studies and criticism connected therewith; literature regarded as a form of fine art.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun plural Polite or elegant literature; the humanities; -- used somewhat vaguely for literary works in which imagination and taste are predominant.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun
literary works valued more for theiraesthetic qualities than for anyinformative oreducational content
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun creative writing valued for esthetic content
- noun creative writing valued for esthetic content
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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It has also given us some wild cards, unexpected treats that belong on the shelf once labeled belles-lettres but now more commonly known (thanks to Dave Eggers's annual paperback anthologies) as nonrequired reading.
Book Review Roundup 2010
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It has also given us some wild cards, unexpected treats that belong on the shelf once labeled belles-lettres but now more commonly known (thanks to Dave Eggers's annual paperback anthologies) as nonrequired reading.
Book Review Roundup 2010
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This is the mistake of believing that experience can be absorbed, both understood and expressed, wholly in literature; and in literature, moreover, which is reduced to belles-lettres prose fiction, poetry, drama, and literary criticism.
Archive 2009-09-01 2009
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London's The Call of the Wild and White Fang are listed as books for youth whereas Martin Eden is belles-lettres or "fine literature."
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This is the mistake of believing that experience can be absorbed, both understood and expressed, wholly in literature; and in literature, moreover, which is reduced to belles-lettres prose fiction, poetry, drama, and literary criticism.
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The standard by which all of belles-lettres are to be judged.
Crit List 7: Let The Parade Of Sleaze Begin -- The Fungus and Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas Sean Craven 2009
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American scholarly trends, steering their students away from popular pulp literature to belles-lettres.
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When a few hardy critics even write about London's stories, they carefully avoid the "kiddy lit" and focus exclusively on London's belles-lettres: Adventure, Burning Daylight, John Barleycorn, The
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Throughout her life, Bracha Habas sought also to engage in belles-lettres.
Bracha Habas. 2009
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The standard by which all of belles-lettres are to be judged.
Archive 2009-04-05 Sean Craven 2009
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