Literary Mash-ups
By Daniela DiStefano

What do you get when you cross 19th-century English literature with 21st-century biological monstrosities and ultraviolent sea serpents? You get something like Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters -- the latest in literary mash-ups.

Mash-ups are older than as Jane Austen herself. Although the formats vary -- music, film, literature, and art -- the process is mainly the same. Elements of different source materials, whether a classic novel or a widely recognized play, are mixed together to create a new composition.