Michael Komorowski on Milton's "On the New Forcers of Conscience" Marine Bruno College

A rare two-tailed form of the sonnet serves as the canvas for one of Milton’s political poems regarding the state and the church’s limitations on individual thoughts, actions, and subjectivity in “On the New Forcers of Conscience under the Long Parliament.” His creativity in his work and format contrast with the lack of liberty and tensions between the Parliament and the Assembly. The year it was written is largely debated amongst scholars, as the specific insults toward Edwards and other Presbyterians place the text between 1645 and 1647. In “’On the New Forcers of Conscience’ and Milton’s Erastianism,” published in the Milton Studies Volume 55 in 2014, Michael Komorowski explains the historical background around Milton’s time. He argues for the dating of the political sonnet while making a case for Milton’s erastianism as a call for freedom of the conscience.

The article is divided into two arguments, the first being called “Dating the Sonnet” and the second being called “The Invention of the Political Sonnet and Milton’s Erastianism.” In “Dating the Sonnet,” Komorowski explains David Masson's biography as the basis for the assumptions that “New Forcers of Conscience” was written in 1646. The argument for this date was the...