The Ideas Of Gentry’s Domestic Economy In Qiludeng

Qiludeng was a full-length novel originated in18th century, which narrated the gentries’ rise and fall in Henan. The story was mainly concerned with the prodigal TanShaowen became a good man and depicted a changed and various world. The author has been a magistrate of Yinjiang County in Guizhou named LiLvyuan who was a Juren. Qiludeng has close relationship with the author’s life experience. The novel reflected the living condition of Henan gentries in China and focused on the conceptions of author’s perfection of himself and running his home. Gentry’s domestic economy conceptions are one of them. This novel can be a reference to social history research because it argued a lot and made the arguments reasonable so that readers can cognize them. Therefore, this thesis is based on Qiludeng to introduce and analyze the domestic economy conceptions and refers to other documents on the corresponding period in order to discuss the social and history effectiveness of the conceptions.The thesis employs history and documents to do the survey. On one hand, the author reads and studies Qiludeng and summaries LiLvyuan’s domestic economy ideas of gentry, on the other hand, the author ponders over the changes of economy and social ranks, the relationship between merchants and gentries and other gentries’ ideas about domestic economy. The author makes comparison between Qiludeng and LiLvyuan’s domestic economy ideas of gentries plus relevant documents to finish the meticulous analysis of LiLvyuan’s ideas. The final aims are to research the universal significance of the study and make conclusions systematically and comprehensively.The thesis is made up three parts. The first part reviews the experience about the author of the novel and the main contents of Qiludeng and introduces the background of the story. The second part considers revising the gentries’ ideas about domestic economy and analyses the views of economic incomes, contact with others and other economic activities. The third part integrates documents on the other period to testify whether this conception has general, real, literary and historical significance. Finally, the author recognizes gentries’ domestic economy ideas.The author makes conclusion of the thesis. The gentries’ domestic economy ideas are based on bourgeois gentries which are a kind of agricultural and commercial economic ideas. These ideas are vigilant to financial activities, uphold economical behaviors and against extravagance, emphasize reading and run one’s home and against gambling. These ideas are belong to the part how the gentries at that time live and thoughts that gentries face to the social changes in18th century so that they can maintain the stability of domestic economy.