Augusta Webster is one of those nineteenth-century women writers whose place in

literary history has yet to be persuasively clarified. Her narrative poetry, lyrics, sonnets,
dramatic monologues, novels, and plays are distinguished by their power and
psychological acuity. Throughout her life, Augusta Webster was intensely concerned
with the lot of women. Many of her poems deal exclusively with issues specifically
affecting women. She wrote numerous powerful monologues to women and created
some complex and believable heroines. Her journalism deals directly with
contemporary social problems, especially women's issues. Her translations of Greek
classics were praised for their accuracy, fidelity to the original, and fluency. And she
demonstrated her reforming spirit through her suffragism and her work for the London
School Board.
From 1860 until her death in 1894, Webster wrote plays, poems, novels, and essays on
contemporary and classical subjects. Webster's forms and mannerisms were pioneered
in works by others - Robert Browning's Monologues, Elizabeth Barrett Browning's
sarcastic declamations, and Tennyson's lyrical interludes.
Webster was also not afraid to express herself in plainer and more direct diction than
her mentors. And her feminism, intellectual achievement, and socio-political concerns
give her poetry a strength that distinguishes her work from that of mere poetry writers.
Augusta Webster's earliest works include two volumes of poetry, an article for
Macmillan's Magazine and a three-volume novel, all published between 1860 and 1864
under the fictitious name, Cecil Home.

Circe by Augusta Webster is a reference to the classic mith. Circe is in search of love,
but sees the men that she encounters as monsters. She tricks them by having them
drink from the cup that have touched her lips. The cup is supposed to reveal the truth.
But Circe ends up questioning whether these men are just revealing their true selves (as
pigs) or if she is changing them.
“Where is my love? Does some one cry for me / not knowing whom he calls?” (17).

It’s interesting to look at the other side of the story. That Circe is just looking for love
even though she believes she is cursed. This is interesting because Circe appears to just
be another obstacle to face during the Odyssey, but looking at it in a different
perspective, Odysseus was the one that chose to stay. Also, Circe has seen so many men
fail her test that she begins to believe all men are monsters.

She accepts her whole presence to be predicated upon an inevitable heartfelt connection
and imagines herself inside customary (Victorian) sexual orientation relations. This pair
of sonnets obviously mirrors Webster's bigger social study of marriage and heartfelt
love as beliefs that can entangle even powerful and influential females.

Ana Carolina Pacheco