The poem, “Guan Ju” is the famous first poem of the classic The Book of Songs, which dates from the 543 's B.C.E. and the first part of which is a collection of songs from each of the areas of China. This poem is one of the songs from Southern Zhou. It appears to be a simple love song of pure and simple, but is closely associated with the marital morality and values and attitudes toward romance and marriage, emphasized and propagated in the Confucian society. The poem employs two literary techniques Bi (比) and Xing (兴) to depict the admiration and affection the noble man has for the lady and his pursuit of her. Bi (比) refers to simile and metaphor, where there are visible and invisible connection between internal feeling and the external
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The characteristics associated with this ideology can be seen when the noble man pursues the lady. First, he not only wants to be with her as lover, but also wants to take her as his only wife. The poem describes the noble man first develops feeling for the lady due to her virtuousness and modesty. As his feeling grows stronger, his desire for her intensifies. At last, he finally marries her to achieve ideal marriage. The responsible love and ideal marriage describe in the poem represent the values and morality cherished and approved in the Confucian society, in contrast to the short-lived infatuation that is disdained by Confucian morality. Secondly, the poem is about both men and women using the reference of "noble man" and "Lady", indicating that the union of the two is associated with the virtues. In traditional Chinese, “君子” noble man reflects both social status and virtue, and "淑女” lady, refers to both physical beauty and virtuous and righteousness. Therefore, the union of “君子” and "淑女” represents a combination of all these good qualities and thus results in an ideal marriage. Again, due to the implicit and euphemistic expression of feeling and emotional turmoil in traditional Chinese culture, the lovers never really confront their feeling directly to each other. From here, we can observe that love is restrained by the Confucian
The characteristics associated with this ideology can be seen when the noble man pursues the lady. First, he not only wants to be with her as lover, but also wants to take her as his only wife. The poem describes the noble man first develops feeling for the lady due to her virtuousness and modesty. As his feeling grows stronger, his desire for her intensifies. At last, he finally marries her to achieve ideal marriage. The responsible love and ideal marriage describe in the poem represent the values and morality cherished and approved in the Confucian society, in contrast to the short-lived infatuation that is disdained by Confucian morality. Secondly, the poem is about both men and women using the reference of "noble man" and "Lady", indicating that the union of the two is associated with the virtues. In traditional Chinese, “君子” noble man reflects both social status and virtue, and "淑女” lady, refers to both physical beauty and virtuous and righteousness. Therefore, the union of “君子” and "淑女” represents a combination of all these good qualities and thus results in an ideal marriage. Again, due to the implicit and euphemistic expression of feeling and emotional turmoil in traditional Chinese culture, the lovers never really confront their feeling directly to each other. From here, we can observe that love is restrained by the Confucian