SOURCE: MacDonald, Ian R. “The Gospels as Fiction: Gabriel Miró's Figuras and Biblical Scholarship.” Forum for Modern Language Studies 26, no. 1 (January 1990): 49-61.

In the following essay, MacDonald outlines the critical controversy surrounding Miró's revision of Gospel texts, Figuras de la Pasión del Señor, and views the sketches in the volume as radical.

Ah! si, dans la fraîcheur de sa beauté, avant les souillures du mariage et la désillusion de l'adultère, elle avait pu placer sa vie sur quelque grand coeur solide, alors la vertu, la tendresse, les voluptés et le devoir se confondant, jamais elle ne serait descendue d'une félicité si haute.¹

These are words from Madame Bovary quoted in shocked tones by the prosecutor at the trial of Flaubert's novel. Flaubert might, he suggested, have had the decency to write of the disappointments of marriage and the defilements...