SOURCE: Forey, Margaret. “Cleveland's ‘Square-Cap’: Some Questions of Structure and Date.” Durham University Journal 36, no. 2 (June 1975): 170-79.

In the following essay, Forey discusses the meaning of the “Calot-Leather-cap” in Cleveland's poem, “Square-Cap,” and the consequent questions of structure and date which it raises.

In the latest edition of the poems of John Cleveland,¹ the fantastic Caroline, commentaries by earlier editors have been usefully amplified by Brian Morris and Eleanor Withington. It can nevertheless be shown that in one respect the new editors have followed their predecessors into error. The correction with which this article is concerned relates to the meaning of the name ‘Calot-Leather-cap’ in the poem ‘Square-Cap’. A new interpretation is offered which raises, and to some extent answers, several questions about the structure and date of this poem.

The subject of ‘Square-Cap’ is a Cambridge beauty, the speaker's mistress, who turns down a succession of suitors...