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Don Carlos Sigüenza was the first Atlantis seeker to search for physical proof of the lost continent, but he was not alone in wanting to cast new light on an ancient legend. Across the ocean in 17th century England, two courtiers of Queen Elizabeth I were also immeasurably broadening the scope of the quest for Atlantis.
One of the reasons that by the 17th century the Atlantis myth had become reintroduced was because there was much more exploration under Elizabeth I. And there was a renewed interest in science in Elizabethan England. This obviously would have encouraged people to reopen the Atlantis story and therefore people began once again, if not to look for it specifically, certain to... certainly to refer to it specifically.
Francis Bacon was a statesman, playwright and one of the first modern scientists. Eager to promote the merits of science to still a largely unscientific world, Bacon wrote a fable called The New Atlantis, the first reworking of the myth since Plato. The New Atlantis told the story of how survivors from the original Atlantis had founded an idyllic society in the still unknown reaches of the Pacific Ocean and used science to uncover the mysteries of the universe. Like Plato, he left his story tantalizingly incomplete.
Bacon refers to Plato, so this was the origin of his story, but it is not seriously an attempt to resurrect Plato's Atlantis, but to create a Utopian society that the British could look at as a way of rewriting the way people could live together.
But Bacon's linking of Atlantis to advanced technology would stay with the myth ever after, as would Atlantis' association with a rather different field of human investigation.
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courtier: n. 朝臣
playwright: n. 剧作家
reach: n. 区域，延伸
merit: n. 优点，价值
tantalizingly: adv. 令人着急地
resurrect: v. 复兴
Utopian: adj. 乌托邦的，理想化的
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