The article deals with K. Hamsun’s novel Victoria (1898). The author offers an overview of various researchers’ approaches to the work and points out that most literary scholars analyzed this story from the point of view of social roles and psychology of the characters. It is further argued that a productive method of research can be to analyze the genre similarities of the novel with medieval Scandinavian ballads, with the author relying on Hamsun’s own assertion that Victoria is nothing but a lyric. The article point at the features of the composition and plot of the story, which are also characteristic of the ballad genre, in particular, its episodic structure and hyperbolized dramatic quality of the plot. Special attention is paid to the analysis of the prose poem Labyrinths of Love, according to the plot written by the protagonist Johannes. The author of the article points out the intertextual connections in the poem with the Bible and medieval ballads, emphasizing that these connections have the character of dialogue. It is further argued that Labyrinths of Love plays an important role in the development of the plot, providing a smooth transition between the episodes of the story and affirming the main idea of the work about love as a powerful force that plays with people’s lives. The tragedy of the protagonists is not a consequence of their social inequality or inner discord, but is predetermined by fate. Due to the dialog with biblical texts and medieval ballads, the seemingly “banal” story of Johannes and Victoria acquires a timeless, universal character, and they become one of the long row of “eternal lovers” such as Hagbard and Signe, Tristan and Isolde, Romeo and Juliet.
Ermakova O. DIALOG WITH MEDIEVAL BALLADS IN KNUT HAMSUN’S NOVEL VICTORIA