Belles-lettres
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Belles-lettres
is a category of writing, originally meaning beautiful or fine writing. In the modern narrow sense, it is a label for literary works that do not fall into the major categories such as fiction, poetry, or drama. The phrase is sometimes used pejoratively for writing that focuses on the aesthetic qualities of language rather than its practical application. A writer of belles-lettres is a belletrist. Overview Literally, is a French phrase meaning 'beautiful' or 'fine' writing. In this sense, therefore, it includes all literary works—especially fiction, poetry, drama, or essays—valued for their aesthetic qualities and originality of style and tone. The term thus can be used to refer 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," whil ...
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Belletrist
is a category of writing, originally meaning beautiful or fine writing. In the modern narrow sense, it is a label for literary works that do not fall into the major categories such as fiction, poetry, or drama. The phrase is sometimes used pejoratively for writing that focuses on the aesthetic qualities of language rather than its practical application. A writer of belles-lettres is a belletrist. Overview Literally, is a French phrase meaning 'beautiful' or 'fine' writing. In this sense, therefore, it includes all literary works—especially fiction, poetry, drama, or essays—valued for their aesthetic qualities and originality of style and tone. The term thus can be used to refer 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," whil ...
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Académie Des Inscriptions Et Belles-Lettres
The Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres () is a French learned society devoted to history, founded in February 1663 as one of the five academies of the Institut de France. The academy's scope was the study of ancient inscriptions ( epigraphy) and historical literature (see Belles-lettres). History The Académie originated in 1663 as a council of four humanists, "scholars who were the most versed in the knowledge of history and antiquity": Jean Chapelain, François Charpentier, Jacques Cassagne, Amable de Bourzeys, and Charles Perrault. In another source, Perrault is not mentioned, and other original members are named as François Charpentier and a M. Douvrier. Etienne Fourmont, 1683–1745: Oriental and Chinese languages in eighteenth ... By Cécile Leung, page 51 The organizer was King Louis XIV's finance minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert. Its first name was the ''Académie royale des Inscriptions et Médailles'', and its mission was to compose or obtain Latin inscr ...
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Letter (message)
A letter is a written message conveyed from one person (or group of people) to another through a medium. Something epistolary means that it is a form of letter writing. The term usually excludes written material intended to be read in its original form by large numbers of people, such as newspapers and placards, although even these may include material in the form of an "open letter". The typical form of a letter for many centuries, and the archetypal concept even today, is a sheet (or several sheets) of paper that is sent to a correspondent through a postal system. A letter can be formal or informal, depending on its audience and purpose. Besides being a means of communication and a store of information, letter writing has played a role in the reproduction of writing as an art throughout history. Letters have been sent since antiquity and are mentioned in the ''Iliad''. Historians Herodotus and Thucydides mention and use letters in their writings. History of letter writing Hi ...
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Literary Fiction
Literary fiction, mainstream fiction, non-genre fiction or serious fiction is a label that, in the book trade, refers to market novels that do not fit neatly into an established genre (see genre fiction); or, otherwise, refers to novels that are character-driven rather than plot-driven, examine the human condition, use language in an experimental or poetic fashion, or are simply considered serious art. ''Literary fiction'' is often used as a synonym for literature, in the exclusive sense of writings specifically considered to have considerable Art, artistic merit. While literary fiction is commonly regarded as artistically superior to genre fiction, the two are not mutually exclusive, and major literary figures have employed the genres of science fiction, crime fiction, Romance novel, romance, etc., to create works of literature. Furthermore, the study of genre fiction has developed within academia in recent decades. Slipstream genre is sometimes located in between the genre and no ...
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Hugh Blair
Hugh Blair FRSE (7 April 1718 – 27 December 1800) was a Scottish minister of religion, author and rhetorician, considered one of the first great theorists of written discourse. As a minister of the Church of Scotland, and occupant of the Chair of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres at the University of Edinburgh, Blair's teachings had a great impact in both the spiritual and the secular realms. Best known for ''Sermons'', a five volume endorsement of practical Christian morality, and ''Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres'', a prescriptive guide on composition (language), composition, Blair was a valuable part of the Scottish Enlightenment. Life Blair was born in Edinburgh into an educated Presbyterian family. His father was John Blair, an Edinburgh merchant. He was great-great-grandson of Rev. Robert Blair of St. Andrews and great nephew of Very Rev. David Blair (moderator), David Blair the Moderator of the General Assembly in 1700. From an early age it was clear that Blair, a ...
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Henry Home, Lord Kames
Henry Home, Lord Kames (169627 December 1782) was a Scottish writer, philosopher, advocate, judge, and agricultural improver. A central figure of the Scottish Enlightenment, a founding member of the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh, and active in the Select Society, he acted as patron to some of the most influential thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment, including the philosopher David Hume, the economist Adam Smith, the writer James Boswell, the chemical philosopher William Cullen, and the naturalist John Walker. Biography He was born at Kames House, between Eccles and Birgham, Berwickshire, son of George Home of Kames House. He was educated at home by a private tutor until the age of 16. In 1712 he was apprenticed as a lawyer under a Writer to the Signet in Edinburgh, was called to the Scottish bar as an advocate bar in 1724. He soon acquired reputation by a number of publications on the civil and Scottish law, and was one of the leaders of the Scottish Enlighte ...
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Rhetoric
Rhetoric () is the art of persuasion, which along with grammar and logic (or dialectic), is one of the three ancient arts of discourse. Rhetoric aims to study the techniques writers or speakers utilize to inform, persuade, or motivate particular audiences in specific situations. Aristotle defines rhetoric as "the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion" and since mastery of the art was necessary for victory in a case at law, for passage of proposals in the assembly, or for fame as a speaker in civic ceremonies, he calls it "a combination of the science of logic and of the ethical branch of politics". Rhetoric typically provides heuristics for understanding, discovering, and developing arguments for particular situations, such as Aristotle's three persuasive audience appeals: logos, pathos, and ethos. The five canons of rhetoric or phases of developing a persuasive speech were first codified in classical Rome: invention, arrangement, style ...
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Dewey Decimal Classification
The Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC), colloquially known as the Dewey Decimal System, is a proprietary library classification system which allows new books to be added to a library in their appropriate location based on subject. Section 4.14 of the article states the DDC is "arranged by discipline, not subject" It was first published in the United States by Melvil Dewey in 1876. Originally described in a 44-page pamphlet, it has been expanded to multiple volumes and revised through 23 major editions, the latest printed in 2011. It is also available in an abridged version suitable for smaller libraries. OCLC, a non-profit cooperative that serves libraries, currently maintains the system and licenses online access to WebDewey, a continuously updated version for catalogers. The decimal number classification introduced the concepts of ''relative location'' and ''relative index''. Libraries previously had given books permanent shelf locations that were related to the order of ac ...
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Oxford English Dictionary
The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') is the first and foundational historical dictionary of the English language, published by Oxford University Press (OUP). It traces the historical development of the English language, providing a comprehensive resource to scholars and academic researchers, as well as describing usage in its many variations throughout the world. Work began on the dictionary in 1857, but it was only in 1884 that it began to be published in unbound fascicles as work continued on the project, under the name of ''A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles; Founded Mainly on the Materials Collected by The Philological Society''. In 1895, the title ''The Oxford English Dictionary'' was first used unofficially on the covers of the series, and in 1928 the full dictionary was republished in 10 bound volumes. In 1933, the title ''The Oxford English Dictionary'' fully replaced the former name in all occurrences in its reprinting as 12 volumes with a one-v ...
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Humour
Humour (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English) or humor (American English) is the tendency of experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humorism, humoral medicine of the ancient Greeks, which taught that the balance of fluids in the human body, known as humours (Latin: ', "body fluid"), controlled human health and emotion. People of all ages and cultures respond to humour. Most people are able to experience humour—be amused, smile or laugh at something funny (such as a pun or joke)—and thus are considered to have a ''sense of humour''. The hypothetical person lacking a sense of humour would likely find the behaviour to be inexplicable, strange, or even irrational. Though ultimately decided by personal taste (aesthetics), taste, the extent to which a person finds something humorous depends on a host of variables, including geographical location, culture, Maturity (psychological), maturity, level of education, inte ...
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Satire
Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or exposing the perceived flaws of individuals, corporations, government, or society itself into improvement. Although satire is usually meant to be humorous, its greater purpose is often constructive social criticism, using wit to draw attention to both particular and wider issues in society. A feature of satire is strong irony or sarcasm —"in satire, irony is militant", according to literary critic Northrop Frye— but parody, burlesque, exaggeration, juxtaposition, comparison, analogy, and double entendre are all frequently used in satirical speech and writing. This "militant" irony or sarcasm often professes to approve of (or at least accept as natural) the very things the satirist wishes to question. Satire is found in many a ...
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