There was much debate over the weekend about Jane Austen’s turquoise ring, which might be ‘saved for the nation’ if someone can step in with £150,000 to snatch it from the finger of the American Idol-winning singer Kelly Clarkson, who recently bought it at auction. The UK government has placed an export bar on the ring, Culture Minister Ed Vaizey saying: “Jane Austen’s modest lifestyle and her early death mean that objects associated with her of any kind are extremely rare, so I hope that a UK buyer comes forward so this simple but elegant ring can be saved for the nation”.

One way of understanding the debate over the ring would be to see it as an argument between purists and sentimentalists. On one side are those who think that since Jane Austen was a great writer, it is her writings that matter, and all the rest is fluff and fetishism. (Compare Ben Jonson’s chair, in my earlier blogpost below). On the other are those who are fascinated by the writer as much as the writings, who are moved by anything associated with Austen, and who point out that material things play vital parts in her novels. The latter group might be somewhat split by the question of Kelly Clarkson’s emotions–since she is clearly a true Janeite, and it feels wrong to cheat someone of their possessions when you share so many of their sentiments.

I have sympathies for all sides in this argument. My critical training convinces me that it’s the writing that matters, and that biographical mythmaking is often a way of simplifying or avoiding works of literature. But the cultural historian in me knows that things like this ring also matter in all kinds of ways (think of The Merchant of Venice, you po-faced literary critics!), and that the idolization of authors is a force to be reckoned with. My prescription: the American Idol needs to find somewhere in the UK to keep her ring. And perhaps she should think of leaving it to an Austen museum in her will.