‘Think What They Have Meant to Me’: The War Poems of Roland Leighton

Abstract

Scholarly discussion of Roland Leighton has previously been limited to his relationship to Vera Brittain and his role in her life as depicted in her memoir Testament of Youth. This article examines three of Leighton’s poems in the context of First World War poetry and thereby allows them to emerge from the shadow of Vera Brittain’s life and work. The study of Leighton’s poems widens our understanding of the early poetry of the war, which is often falsely depicted as dichotomous with the poetry of Brooke and Grenfell on one side and Charles Sorley on the other. Leighton’s work allows for nuance within this false dichotomy and supplies a personal and introspective response to the war that redirects our attention to poetry as a conscious creative wartime-practice. This shifts the focus away from what the poetry says about the war and more towards what it meant to the poets who wrote it.