SOURCE: Levin, Harry. “John Cleveland and the Conceit.” Criterion 14, no. 54 (October 1934): 40-53.

In the following essay, Levin reviews Cleveland's style of rhetoric and metaphor throughout his work, concluding that he is a truly brilliant poet who, while extolled by his contemporaries, has been neglected in historical acclamation.

There are some writers who may not be mentioned without apology, and John Cleveland is definitely in that category. For about twenty-five years, no English poet was so strenuously cultivated; for the two hundred and fifty years between that time and this, none has been so pointedly ignored. Dr. Johnson, exercising his familiar talent for converting literary issues into moral ones, was one of those who sat in final judgment. Cleveland and his fellows were found guilty of paying court to ‘temporary prejudice’. It was decreed that they had received too much praise from their contemporaries, and would get too little...