Belles letters style of English Plan: Introduction Main Body The belles-letteres Style

Defination of Belles-Letters in English Grammar
"A piece of prose writing that is belletristic in style is characterized by a casual, yet polished and pointed, essayistic elegance. The belletristic is sometimes contrasted with the scholarly or academic: it is supposed to be free of the laborious, inert, jargon-ridden habits indulged by professors.
"Reflection on literature has most often been belletristic: practiced by authors themselves and (later) by journalists, outside academic institutions. Literary study, beginning with research on the classics, became a systematic academic discipline only in the 18th and 19th centuries." (David Mikics, A New Handbook of Literary Terms. Yale University Press, 2007)
Oratory, Rhetoric, and Belles-Letteres in the 18th and 19th Centuries
"Cheap print literacy transformed the relations of rhetoric, composition, and literature. In his review of [Wilbur Samuel] Howell's British Logic and Rhetoric, [Walter] Ong notes that 'by the close of the 18th century orality as a way of life in effect ended, and with it the old-time world of oratory, or, to give oratory its Greek name rhetoric' (641). According to one of the literature professors who occupied the chair of rhetoric and belles letteres established for Hugh Blair, Blair was the first to recognize that '"Rhetoric" in modern times really means "Criticism"' (Saintsbury 463). Rhetoric and composition began to be subsumed into literary criticism at the same time that the modern sense of literature was emerging . . .. In the 18th century, literature was reconceived as 'literary work or production; the activity or profession of a man of letters,' and it moved toward the modern 'restricted sense, applied to writing which has claim to consideration on the ground of beauty of form or emotional effect.' . . . Ironically, composition was becoming subordinated to criticism, and literature was becoming narrowed to imaginative works oriented to aesthetic effects at the same time that authorship was actually expanding." (Thomas P. Miller, The Formation of College English: Rhetoric and Belles Letteres in the British Cultural Provinces. University of Pittsburgh Press, 1997)
The Influential Theories of Hugh Blair
"[Throughout the 19th century, prescriptions for] fine writing--with their attendant critique of literary style--advanced an influential theory of reading as well. The most influential exponent of this theory was [Scottish rhetorician] Hugh Blair, whose 1783 Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles-Letteres was the text for generations of students. . . .
"Blair intended to teach college students the principles of expository writing and speaking and to guide their appreciation of good literature. Throughout the 48 lectures, he stresses the importance of a thorough knowledge of one's subject. He makes it clear that a stylistically deficient text reflects a writer who doesn't know what he thinks; anything less than a clear conception of one's subject guarantees defective work, 'so close is the connection between thoughts and the words in which they are clothed' (I, 7). . . . In sum, Blair equates taste with the delighted perception of wholeness and posits such delight as a psychological given. He makes this remark by way of connecting taste with literary criticism and concludes that good criticism approves unity above all else. "Blair's doctrine of perspicuity further connects least effort on the reader's part with admirable writing. In Lecture 10 we are told that style discloses the writer's manner of thinking and that perspicuous style is preferred because it reflects an unwavering point of view on the part of the author." (William A. Covino, The Art of Wondering: A Revisionist Return to the History of Rhetoric. Boynton/Cook, 1988)
We have already pointed out that the belles-letteres style is a generic term for three substyles in which the main principles and the most general properties of the style are materialized. These three sub-styles are:
The language of p о е try, or simply verse,
Emotive p г о s e, or the language of fiction.
The language of the drama.
Each of these substyles has certain common features, typical of the general belles-letteres style, which make up-the foundation of the style, by which the particular style is made recognizable and can there­fore be singled out. Each of them also enjoys some individuality. This is revealed in definite features typical only of one or another substyle. This correlation of the general and the particular in each variant of the belles-letteres style had manifested itself differently at different stages in its historical development.
The common features of the substyles may be summed up as follows. First of all comes the common function which may broadly be called "aesthetieo-cognitive". This is a double function which aims at the cog­nitive process, which secures the gradual unfolding of the idea to the reader and at the same time calls forth a feeling of pleasure, a pleasure which is, derived from the form in which the content is wrought. The psychological element, pleasure, is not irrelevant when evaluating the effect of the communication. 13 This pleasure is caused not only by admi­ration of the selected language means and their peculiar arrangement but also (and this is perhaps the main cause) by the fact that the reader is led to form his own conclusions as to the purport of the author. Nothing gives more pleasure and satisfaction than realizing that one has the ability to penetrate into the hidden tissue of events, phenomena and human activi­ty, and to perceive the relation between various seemingly unconnected facts brought together by the creative mind of the writer. The purpose of the belles-letteres style is not to prove but only to suggest a possible interpretation of the phenomena of life by forcing the reader to see the viewpoint of the writer. This is the cognitive function of the belles-letteres style. The belles-letteres style rests on certain indispensable linguistic fea­tures which are:
1. Genuine, not trite, imagery, achieved by purely linguistic devices.
2. The use of words in contextual and very often in more than one dictionary meaning, or at least greatly influenced by the lexical environ­ment.
3. A vocabulary which will reflect to a greater or lesser degree the author's personal evaluation of things or phenomena.
4. A peculiar individual selection of vocabulary and syntax, a kind of lexical and syntactical idiosyncrasy.
5. The introduction of the typical features of colloquial language to a full degree (in plays) or a lesser one (in emotive prose) or a slight degree, if any (in poems).
The belles-letteres style is individual in essence. This is one of its most distinctive properties becomes gradually less in, let us say, publicistic style. The relation between the general and the particular assumes different forms in different styles and in their variants. This relation is differently materialized even within one and the same style. This is due to the strong imprint of personality on any work of poetic style. There may be a greater or lesser volume of imagery (but not an absence of imagery); a greater or lesser number of words with contextual meaning (but not all words without contextual meaning); a greater or lesser number of colloquial elements (but not a complete absence of colloquial elements).