BELLES-LETTRES STYLE

The belles-lettres 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:

1. The language of poetry, or simply verse.

2. Emotive prose, or the language of fiction.

3. The language of the drama.

Each of these sub styles has certain common features, typical of the general belles-lettres 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.

The common features of the substyles may be summed up as follows. First of all comes the common function which may broadly be called " aesthetico-cognitive ". This is a double function which aims at the cog­nitive process, which secures the gradual Enfolding 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 belles-lettres 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-lettres style is individual in essence. This is one of its most distinctive properties. Individuality in selecting language means (including stylistic devices), extremely apparent in poetic style, becomes gradually less in, publicistic style, is hardly noticeable in the

style of scientific prose and is entirely lacking in newspapers and in offi­cial 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).

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