belles lettres ( es mute)

pl. [Fr. ( lit. ) = fine letters.] A term borrowed from the French, and signifying polite literature, what were of old called "the humanities." It has been held to include such kinds of literature as require for their production imagination and taste, rather than study and reflection. Littré, without doubt, giving the actual usage of the term belles - lettres in France, makes it include grammar, eloquence, and poetry. In England, poetry, fiction, rhetoric, philology, and even history, are generally included within its limits; but whatever may have been the case in a more backward state of thought than that which at present exists, it is a satire on philology, history, and grammar to regard them as studies in which imagination is predominant. "The exactne of the other, is to admit of sоmеthing like discourse, course, especially in what regards the belles-lettres."- Tatler .