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
The paper analyses Karen Blixen’s short story “The Sailor-boy’s Tale”, which opens her collection “Winter’s Tales” (1942), in comparison with the Danish translation made by the author in the same year. The Danish text is considered the result of a process of auto-translation, recoding, and adaptation of the text for the Scandinavian reader. In the Danish version, the prose is more rhythmic and the descriptions are more vivid, which enhances the sensual authenticity. However, allusions to English and American authors and quotations are translated into Danish, which obscures their significance as markers of intertextual dialogue. Additionally, the dialogue with Scandinavian pretexts and paintings familiar to the Danish reader becomes more pronounced.