The Pocket University entry for September 21st and 22nd is a selection of 7 sonnets (out of 154) by Shakespeare, including Sonnets 18, 29, 30, 71, 73, 106 and 116. Sonnets 1 through 126 are addressed to "A Fair Youth", a young man.
Sonnet 18 is the often quoted "Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day". Shakespeare writes that the love interest is better than a summers day, and more constant. This is the 4th sonnet in a series starting with sonnet 15 that claims to immortalize love in the written word. This theme of immortality through writing is also present in Ovid's "Tristia" and "Amores".
In Sonnet 29, Shakespeare writes that when things are not going well, he thinks of his love interest and feels better. Sonnet 30 is similarly themed.
Sonnet 71 advises the love interest to not mourn death, but instead, to let love fade rather than suffer from it. This theme contrasts with that of Sonnets 29 and 30, where love was what overcame troubling times or thoughts. Sonnet 73 is about love at the end of life. This wikipedia article references Joseph Kau's article "Daniel's Influence On An Image In Pericles and Sonnet 73: An Impresa of Destruction", which indicates Samuel Daniels, one of the auhors we read yesterday, influenced this sonnnet.
Sonnet 106 claims all prior literature that described beauty are merely inadequate prophesies of the love interest's beauty.
Sonnet 116 claims love is everlasting and immutable.
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