A selection of romances from medieval literature can be used successfully in undergraduate literature classes to trace the appearance and relevance of medieval themes, motifs, and characters in works of modern poetry, fiction, and film. New scholarly editions, historiographies, translations, and modernizations give both teachers and students more authentic materials with which to work. For example, in "Tristan and Iseult" students find the tale of a love that survives denunciation, entrapment, and long separations to become a symbol of faithfulness for centuries to come. T. S. Eliot, in "The Waste Land," uses echoes of this poem and of Chretien's "Perceval" to point up the impermanence of relationships and the moral disintegration of twentieth-century life. Other themes can be traced from "Yvain,""Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," and "Le Morte Darthur" to "The Wizard of Oz,""Star Wars,""A Book of Common Prayer," and "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." Papers and class discussions have revealed that students can learn to recognize and appreciate the Middle Ages as a time of creativity and wit. (KEH)