Music Mashup

The Music Mashup example that we used for our presentation:

United States of Pop (Viva La Pop)
By Dj Earworm

Featuring the top 25 Billboard hits from 2008, this music mashup does not hide the fact that it is composed of songs by other artists. This is a good example of Schneider's key distiction for this form:

"Mashups are only mashups if they are recognisable both as their components and the whole simultaneously" (Schneider 20).

Schneider's Mashup

As Schneider describes in his abstract, mashups are a new literary form. The form is so new in fact that the term is currently not found in the Merriam-Webster's Dictionary. Schneider tries to define the form and also attempts to create one, called Buchstauben. According to Schneider's abstract, mashups are "texts composed by combining portions from several original texts." He compares this form to a quilt, which is scraps of fabric stitched together to make a whole. These collaborative and derivative works can fall into controversy surrounding the issue of copyright.

Not A Mashup - Centro

CENTRO
noun
Etymology: from Latin the word for a patchwork garment
1. a composition formed by joining scraps from other authors
--Oxford English Dictionary

This term is predominately used to describe poetry. Due to the fact that The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana is a novel, the text cannot be considered a centro. However, the centro is the closest traditional literary term to the form and style of a mashup. A centro is a poem composed by sampling early poets. It is different from a mashup in that the centro has strict rules of composition, while the mashup is not yet codified in this way. A centro is also usually formed by using the work of canonical authors, like Homer and Virgil. A mashup is not restricted to any specific type of source and features work from a broad range of authors.

Traditional Centro Example

580 -- xo interests to own or fit vesper w lympo
581 -- tum vic tu revo cant vi res fu sique per herbam
582 -- et dapi bus men sas one rant et pocula ponunt
583 -- postquam prima qui es epu lis men saeque remotae

This is a small part of the 694 line centro written in the mid-fourth century AD by female poet, Faltonia Betitia Proba. After converting to Christianity, Proba wrote this poem, which is parts of the Old and New Testament. The poem is created using different poetic lines previously written by Virgil. Virgil's lines have obviously been rearrange to now tell biblical stories. This section is from a part about The Last Supper, roughly translated from the Latin above into English it reads;

580 -- Meanwhile, tipped the Olympus (heaven),
the evening star is closer
581 -- Then with the food recovered strength,
and scattered on the grass
582 -- Tables loaded with dishes and glasses placed
583 -- After a first break was the food and tables removed

The choice to write in centro, and to use Virgil's words, stems from his fame. He replaced Homer as the most widely read and studied poet a somepoint during the first century BC. A perceived notion of authors at the time Proba wrote the above poem was, "Who can say something better than Virgil, who said it all?"

---- Ardea, Antonio. "El Carmen Sacrum de Faltonia Betitia, la Primera Poetisa Cristiana." Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. Online.

Connection To The Text
The idea that authors in the fourth century were already concerned that previous artists and thinkers had produced all the possible original work is very similar to the postmodern theory that we can no longer create anything new. Nothing truly original can be produced because everything has already been created. In terms of his identity, Yambo is only able to recreate himself through interactions with material objects created by others. He suspects that even his own compositions as a child are written with a borrowed voice and merely created to present to the teacher a regurgitated version of something that would get a good grade. Perhaps everything that could be thought or written already has been and we are soon doomed to only create mashups from now on.