Abstract
Students in a first‐year seminar gained a deeper understanding of Arthurian literature and its modern adaptations by studying the 2018 animated series She‐Ra and the Princesses of Power in conversation with Chrétien de Troyes's twelfth‐century story Perceval. She‐Ra and Perceval share many motifs, symbols, and character elements due to their common heritage in medieval romance. Students analyzed how the inclusive, diverse She‐Ra recuperates the themes of the Grail story from Perceval and extended its tradition of coming‐of‐age stories, which provides strategies for other teachers to use in bringing together historically and generically disparate texts. Studying She‐Ra in the context of medieval literature enabled my students to deepen their understanding of both works and to think critically about how modern media transforms and transmits the stories and ideologies of the past.
