This thesis endeavours to investigate some of the many ways literary works can engage with the tradition of extremism. In so doing, the author hopes to demonstrate the importance of the tradition as a vessel for understanding the world around and within us. In an effort to show the breadth and endurance of this tradition, this thesis critically analyses selected works by Robert Browning, Harold Pinter, and Frank Bidart in context with various other literary works.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Tufts University, 1999. / Chair: Jay Cantor. Submitted to the Dept. of English and American Literature. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 200-211). Access restricted to members of the Tufts University community. Also available via the World Wide Web;

I offer a cloud of observations about language and art. I will prioritize my questions about how language operates in art, the way it functions within my own studio practice, and locate aesthetic interstices throughout. There will be insights gleaned from the various orderers of order (Lacan, Saussure) and orderers of disorder (Derrida, Agamben), walks in terra-incognita, and even some poetry on my part. I will take this chance to orient myself among different structures and deconstructions that have piledup around language, aesthetics and art.

L'approche cyclostratigraphique, qui repose sur l'analyse des cyclicités sédimentaires et l'étude de leurs relations avec les évolutions des paramètres orbitaux de la Terre, a été employée ici dans le but de construire une échelle de temps astronomique pour le Maastrichtien. Plusieurs sites ont été étudiés : les forages ODP des legs 122 (marge Nord ouest australienne), 207 (Atlantique équatorial), et 208 (Atlantique sud), le leg DSDP 74X et les coupes à terre situées à Gubbio (Italie) et Bidart (Pays Basque). Les analyses ont portées sur les variations de la susceptibilité magnétique, de la réflectance et des niveaux de gris. L'étude cyclostratigraphique a permis de détecter un contrôle orbital de la sédimentation sur l'ensemble des séries étudiées, avec l'enregistrement de cyclicités correspondants aux variations de l'excentricité à 100 et 405 ka, de l'obliquité et de la précession. Un calage temporel de l'ensemble des séries provenant des forages DSDP et ODP a ensuite été effectué à l'aide de la solution astronomique La0x, sur la base de l'identification des cycles d'excentricité à 405 ka. Ce cadre ainsi créé constitue une échelle de temps relative couvrant 8 Millions d'années, depuis le Campanien supérieur jusqu'à la limite K-Pg. La durée de chaque magnétochrone, du C32r2r au C29r, a ainsi pu être estimée avec une précision de l'ordre de 0.03 Ma. La calibration astronomique des séries calées en temps a été effectuée à l'aide de la nouvelle solution astronomique La10.Deux séries d'âges sont proposées pour les événements géologiques reconnus dans les séries sédimentaires. L'âge de la limite K-Pg a été estimé à ~65.59 Ma ou ~66 Ma.

This doctoral thesis involves two components, a book length collection of poems and a critical study of ‘Herbert White’ and ‘Ellen West’ by Frank Bidart. The collection of poems, The Coagulate, consists of four parts: 1) Semi-personal poems focusing on nature both in a general sense and in specific reference to the natural British landscape. 2) Poems that explore the nature-based myths and contemporary social idiosyncrasies of Japan.3) Poems that explore the social perception of mental illness and the individual voices that exist in spite psychological classification.4) Poems by an alter-ego and pseudonym named Lee Cole, a completely foreign perspective to my own. These poems were written with the intent to adhere to Frank Bidart’s concept of Herbert White as ‘all that I was not.’ However, unlike Bidart, these poems attempt to remove the presence of the poet and forgo the use of a feint. The collection is organised with contexture in mind rather than chronology. Poems build upon one another and one section flows into the next causing the book to have a fluid quality. The critical component examines Bidart’s treatment of two mentally ill characters in respect to the establishment of the form, style, and voice that would become a hallmark of his poetry. Chapter 1 looks at the first poem of Bidart’s first book, ‘Herbert White.’ This chapter examines how Bidart’s unique use of typography, voice, Freudian theory, and the sharing of the poet’s history contributed to the crafting of a mentally ill character and the contexture of Golden State. It suggests that the inclusion of the poet, a stable presence in comparison to White, allows the reader to recognise certain universal human personality traits in a character that seems inhuman. Chapter 2 examines how Bidart crafted ‘Ellen West,’ a character just as unlike Bidart as ‘Herbert White.’ Central to this analysis is the examination of how to construct a character struggling with identity. It also examines the use of dramatic monologues and how ‘Ellen West’ fits into a form with a flexible definition. As with Chapter 1, Chapter 2 examines how Bidart uses the poet’s self to add to a fictional narrative and how that reflects upon his personal poetry, indicating that Bidart’s use of the self is a redirection from how the Confessional poets used first-person.