1. 研究目的与意义（文献综述）

unremitting studies of milton continues to emerge in foreign literary circles with updated perspectives and methods. for the research relevant to milton’s heaven, joad raymond claims there is a particular affinity between the images of paradise lost and the reality milton offers to describe. therefore, his study on the images of angels like raphael, michael and abdiel in paradise lost represents milton’s thinking about various matters. besides, angelica duran associates milton with disability studies in the blind bard, according to john milton and his contemporaries.

in china, researches on milton started later than western countries, yet developed rapidly. missionaries like karlfriedrich august gützlaff and walter henry medhurst were responsible for the early general introduction of milton and his masterpiece to china since 1837. later in new culture movement, chinese scholars’ translations on milton emerged in response to the promotion of foreign literature, like fu donghua’s lucid version in 1930 and zhu weiji’s faithful version in 1934. studies on themes and characterization in paradise lost during the republic of china mostly inherited the opinions of romantic poets and critics like blake, shelly and william hazlitt, speaking highly of satan as a heroic rebel. recently, a comparative study an idealist poet and a modern essayist conducted by xie taifeng makes a contrast between milton and lu xun for their appealing for spiritual struggle. studies go further in content through dating back to milton’s early poems and pamphlets and go wider in perspectives like milton’s idea of virtue, woman and marriage. for example, xu guixia considers the most essential virtues for milton are right reason, faith and self-mastery.

william blake is a pious poet and engraver largely unrecognized during his lifetime, yet gains increasing acknowledgment over the passage of time. william blake has been studied from the perspective of psychology, professor will w. adams managed to expound the correspondences between blake and d. w. winnicott in love, openness, and authenticity by analyzing blake’s work and life in light of winnicott’s theory of development and psychotherapy and vice versa. in china, zhang chiheng, from the perspective of a translator, indicated how little the extraordinary poet and saint was known by us, even the title a poet not supposed to be ignored should leave us a clue. he informed his readers of blake’s anecdotes, his artistic and spiritual world as well as his connection with modernism. songs of innocence as one of his early writing is popular among readers and critics for presenting the purity of soul and simplicity of mind. studies on songs of innocence from the perspective of theme, rhyme, images, symbols prevail home and abroad among which the comparison work between songs of innocence and songs of experience is the main stream. however, studies on virtuous merit have been less discussed. this paper analyses human’s fraternity and compassion to other people by referring to the friendly love between man of wangjing’s a thematic study of songs of innocence in the perspective of figure-ground theory.

2. 研究的基本内容与方案

long lost in the secular world, people are losing connection and perception of heaven which was supposed to be our true homeland. thus, this paper sets its goal to explore the treasure revealed in milton and blake’s heaven through analyzing virtuous behavior of human and the eternal beauty of heaven based on poems ranging from milton’s sonnets and epic paradise lost to blake’s songs of innocence.

the paper will develop from the following three parts: qualifications to be a messenger, virtues in human and depiction of heaven.

the first part focuses on milton and blake’s qualifications to be the messengers of heaven in light of their biographies. certain correspondences are shared between them: living in an age of social and political upheavals, possessing great poetry talent and radical political opinions, showing great compassion to people in distress in their works, etc.

3. 研究计划与安排

before 20th, january settlement of the title

before 20th, march submission of the outline

before 25th, april submission of the first draft

4. 参考文献（12篇以上）

[1]adams, w. w. love, open awareness, and authenticity: a conversation with william blake and d. w. winnicott[j]. journal of humanistic psychology, 2006, 46(1):9-35.

[2]duran, a. the blind bard, according to john milton and his contemporaries[j]. mosaic, 2013, 46(3):141-157.

[3]forsyth, n. heaven and its discontents: milton’s characters in paradise lost[j]. reviews, 2012, 46(2):122-123.