{"id":22258,"date":"2026-07-22T17:31:57","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T21:31:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=22258"},"modified":"2026-07-22T17:31:57","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T21:31:57","slug":"sir-henry-by-robert-nathan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=22258","title":{"rendered":"‘Sir Henry,’ by Robert Nathan"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\u201cHowever,\u201d he said, \u201cif you will not enter the tournament, promise me that you will stay for the banquet afterwards, when there will be some very interesting discourse on love, in which I would be glad to have you join.\u201d \u201cI should be delighted to,\u201d said Sir Henry, \u201cthough I do not think I can add anything to the general knowledge on the subject.\u201d \u201cNo matter,\u201d said King Anselm, \u201cfor no one else knows very much about it anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Robert Nathan was an eccentric author; <\/strong>I suspect he reveled in that quality. In Sir Henry<\/a><\/em>, first published in 1955, he provides us with a medieval romance \u2013 of a sort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The titular Sir Henry is a middle-aged knight of no great distinction, riding about seeking chivalric adventure on his horse Ponderer, accompanied by his hound Manfred. (Charmingly, the animals talk to one another.) He comes upon a fiery dragon and slays it pretty much by accident. Thereby he frees the dragon\u2019s captive, the lady Alisane, a practical-minded maiden who immediately starts discussing their future home and domesticity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further along, they encounter another knight who insists on combat, and Sir Henry slays him as well, again by mischance. This leaves that knight\u2019s companion, the lady Meghan, in his care as well. Sir Henry has a carriage constructed to carry the three of them, and they proceed to various adventures, most of them bloodless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alisane is focused on establishing a home. Meghan, on the other hand, is keen for adventure and glory, and finds Sir Henry rather a disappointment. Eventually they do find a home and start constructing a castle, but the upshot of that arrangement will be a total surprise to Sir Henry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve gotten used to not deriving clear lessons from Robert Nathan\u2019s books (though I think I understand Portrait of Jennie<\/em> to some extent). Sir Henry <\/em>is a gentle (and well-crafted) riff on chivalric literature, and also an allegory, with a touch of psychomachia. It\u2019s fun and likeable and bittersweet. I enjoyed it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cHowever,\u201d he said, \u201cif you will not enter the tournament, promise me that you will stay for the banquet afterwards, when there will be some very interesting discourse on love, in which I would be glad to have you join.\u201d \u201cI should be delighted to,\u201d said Sir Henry, \u201cthough I do not think I can … Continue reading ‘Sir Henry,’ by Robert Nathan<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,15],"tags":[5980,6031],"class_list":["post-22258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-reviews","tag-robert-nathan","tag-sir-henry"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22258"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22261,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22258\/revisions\/22261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}