Belles-lettres
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Belles-lettres or belles lettres, literally "beautiful" or "fine" letters, are literary works – especially fiction, poetry, drama, or essays – valued for their aesthetic qualities and originality of style and tone (usually with regard to the language used but sometimes even in terms of the visual typography employed) rather than their informative or moral content.
The term once referred to literature generally. The Nuttall Encyclopedia, for example, described belles lettres as the department of literature which implies literary culture and belongs to the domain of art, whatever the subject may be or the special form; it includes poetry, the drama, fiction, and criticism.
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This article incorporates text from the public domain 1907 edition of The Nuttall Encyclopaedia.
