2. 外语
  3. Among many historians a belief persists that Cotton Mather’s biographies of some of the settlers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony

Among many historians a belief persists that Cotton Mather’s biographies of some of the settlers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony

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问题     Among many historians a belief persists that Cotton Mather’s biographies of some of the settlers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony (published 1702) are exercises in hagiography, endowing their subjects with saintly piety at the expense of historical accuracy. Yet modern studies have profited both from the breadth of information that Mather provides—in, for example, his discussions of colonial medicine—and from his critical observations of such leading figures as Governor John Winthrop. Mather’s wry humor as demonstrated by his detailed descriptions of events such as Winthrop’s efforts to prevent wood-stealing is overlooked by those charging Mather with presenting his subjects as extremely pious. The charge also obscures Mather’s concern with the settlers’ material, not just spiritual, prosperity. Further, this pejorative view underrates the biographies value as chronicles: Mather amassed all sorts of published and unpublished documents as sources, and his selection of key events shows a marked sensitivity to the nature of the colony’s development.
The author of the passage implies that an argument for the historical accuracy of Mather’s works is most strongly supported by which of the following?
选项 A、Surviving documents that corroborate Mather’s detailed descriptions of his subjects
B、Mather’s firsthand personal acquaintance with those about whom he wrote
C、Mather’s frank and straightforward accounts of the lives and times of people about whom he had conducted extensive research
D、Mather’s ability to detail important historical events in the religious context of which they were a part
E、The quantity and nature of the sources from which Mather obtained his information.
答案E
解析 对应第五句，quantity对应amassed all sorts of published and unpublished documents，nature对应sensitivity to the nature of the colony’s development。A项文中用来说明马瑟作品的历史精确性的是他的研究过程以及研究资料，他的精确性本身没有被一些幸存的文件证明。可以说是马瑟利用一些文件的信息去支持他的细节化描写，但是不能说一些文件证明了他的精确性，所以选项A不对。
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