''The Sofa: A Moral Tale'' (french: Le Sopha, conte moral) is a 1742

libertine novel The libertine novel was an 18th-century literary genre of which the roots lay in the European but mainly French libertine tradition. The genre effectively ended with the French Revolution. Themes of libertine novels were anti-clericalism, anti-e ...

by Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon. It was first translated into English in the spring of 1742 in an edition published by John Nourse and Thomas Cooper. This translation has been attributed to Eliza Haywood and William Hatchett. Le Sopha Crebillon 1742

The story concerns a young courtier, Amanzéï, whose soul in a previous life was condemned by Brahma to inhabit a series of sofas, and not to be reincarnated in a human body until two virgin lovers had consummated their passion upon the sofa he "inhabited." The novel is structured as a

frame story A frame is often a structural system that supports other components of a physical construction and/or steel frame that limits the construction's extent. Frame and FRAME may also refer to: Physical objects In building construction *Framing (con ...

in an oriental setting, explicitly evocative of the ''

Arabian Nights ''One Thousand and One Nights'' ( ar, أَلْفُ لَيْلَةٍ وَلَيْلَةٌ, italic=yes, ) is a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age. It is often known in English as the ''Arabian ...

'', in which Amanzéï recounts the adventures of seven couples, which he witnessed in his sofa form, to the bored sultan Shah Baham (grandson of Shehryār and Scheherazade). The longest episode, that of Zulica, takes up nine chapters; the final episode concerns the teenage Zéïnis and Phéléas. Amanzéï, witnessing their innocent pleasure, is edified and freed through the experience of virtuous love. Many of the characters in the novel are satirical portraits of influential and powerful Parisians of Crébillon's time; the author takes the opportunity to ridicule hypocrisy in its different forms (worldly respectability, virtue, religious devotion). In particular, some recognize Louis XV in the figure of the ridiculous Shah Baham. Although the book was published anonymously and with a false imprint, Crébillon was discovered to be the author and was exiled to a distance of thirty leagues from Paris on April 7, 1742. He was able to return on July 22, after claiming that the work had been commissioned by

Frederick II of Prussia Frederick II (german: Friedrich II.; 24 January 171217 August 1786) was King in Prussia from 1740 until 1772, and King of Prussia from 1772 until his death in 1786. His most significant accomplishments include his military successes in the Sil ...

and that it had been published against his will. ''Le Sopha'' was translated into English by Haywood and Hatchett in 1742, by Bonamy Dobrée in 1927, and by Martin Kamin in 1930 (as ''The Divan: A Morality Story''). ''Le Sopha'' is visible as the title of a book in '' The Toilette'', one of William Hogarth's series of satirical paintings '' Marriage à-la-mode'', made 1743–1745.Robert L. S. Cowley, ''Marriage a-la-mode: a re-view of Hogarth's narrative art'',

Manchester University Press Manchester University Press is the university press of the University of Manchester, England and a publisher of academic books and journals. Manchester University Press has developed into an international publisher. It maintains its links with th ...

, 1983, , p. 105 It is also the book that Mr. Mercaptan, who calls his own sofa Crébillon, gives to Rosie in Aldous Huxley's ''

Antic Hay ''Antic Hay'' is a comic novel by Aldous Huxley, published in 1923. The story takes place in London, and depicts the aimless or self-absorbed cultural elite in the sad and turbulent times following the end of World War I. The book follows the ...

''.

References

* Liz Bellamy, ''Commerce, morality and the eighteenth-century novel'', Cambridge University Press, 1998, , p. 61 * D. A. Day, "On the Dating of Three Novels by Crébillon Fils," ''The Modern Language Review'', Vol. 56, No. 3. (July 1961), pp. 391–92. * Carole Dornier,
Orient romanesque et satire de la religion: Claude Crébillon, Tanzaï et Néadarné et Le Sopha
" '' Eighteenth-Century Fiction'' Vol. 11: Iss. 4, Article 1 (1999

External links

E-text (Engl. trans. by Bonamy Dobrée)E-text (French)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sofa: A Moral Tale, The 1742 novels 18th-century French novels French erotic novels 1740s fantasy novels French fantasy novels French satirical novels