Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition

Background details and bibliographic information

Sixteen Dead Men

Author: William Butler Yeats

File Description

Electronic edition compiled and proof-read by Beatrix Färber, Rebecca Daly

Funded by School of History, University College, Cork

1. First draft.

Extent of text: 670 words

Publication

Distributed by CELT online at University College, Cork, Ireland.
Text ID Number: E910001-060

Availability [RESTRICTED]

The works by W. B. Yeats are in the public domain. This electronic text is available with prior consent of the CELT programme for purposes of private or academic research and teaching.

Notes

Written on 17 December 1916 or 1917; first published in The Dial in November 1920 (A. Norman Jeffares, p. 229).

Sources

Literature (a small selection)
1. W. B. Yeats, The Autobiography of William Butler Yeats, consisting of Reveries over childhood and youth, The trembling of the veil, and Dramatis personae (New York 1938).
2. Richard Ellmann, Yeats: The Man and the Masks. Corrected edition with a new preface (Oxford 1979). [First published New York 1948; reprinted London 1961.]
3. Peter Allt and Russell K. Alspach, The Variorum Edition of the Poems of W.B. Yeats (New York: Macmillan 1957).
4. W. B. Yeats, Essays and Introductions (New York: Macmillan 1961).
5. W. B. Yeats, Explorations: selected by Mrs W. B. Yeats (London/New York: Macmillan 1962).
6. Richard Ellmann, The Identity of Yeats (New York 1964).
7. A. Norman Jeffares, A New Commentary on the Poems of W.B. Yeats (Stanford 1984).
8. A general bibliography is available online at the official web site of the Nobel Prize. See: http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1923/yeats-bibl.html

The edition used in the digital edition
1. William Butler Yeats Sixteen Dead Men in , Ed. Richard J. Finneran The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats. Macmillan Press, London, (1991) pages 184–185

Encoding

Project Description

CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts

Sampling Declaration

The whole poem.

Editorial Declaration

Correction

The text has been proof-read twice.

Normalization

The electronic text represents the edited text.

Hyphenation

The editorial practice of the hard-copy editor has been retained.

Segmentation

div0= the individual poem, stanzas are marked lg.

Interpretation

Names of persons (given names), and places are not tagged. Terms for cultural and social roles are not tagged.

Profile Description

Created: (17 December 1916 or 1917)

Use of language

Language: [EN] The poem is in English.

Revision History

• (2014-05-02)

  Beatrix Färber (ed.)

• TEI header created with bibliographical detail. File parsed and validated; SGML and HTML files created.
• (2014-05-01)

  Rebecca Daly (ed.)

• Structural markup applied according to CELT practice.
• (1996)

  Students at the CELT Project, UCC (ed.)

• First proofing.
• (1996)

  Donnchadh Ó Corráin (data capture)

• Text captured

Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition: E910001-060

Sixteen Dead Men: Author: William Butler Yeats

p.184

1. O but we talked at large before
   The sixteen men were shot,
   But who can talk of give and take,
   What should be and what not
   While those dead men are loitering there
   To stir the boiling pot?

---

p.185

2. You say that we should still the land
   Till Germany's overcome;
   But who is there to argue that
   Now Pearse is deaf and dumb?
   And is their logic to outweigh
   MacDonagh's bony thumb?
3. How could you dream they'd listen
   That have an ear alone
   For those new comrades they have found,
   Lord Edward and Wolfe Tone,
   Or meddle with our give and take
   That converse bone to bone?