Author(s): Ayushi

Abstract: This paper argues that literary meaning is not a static property embedded within a text but a dynamic event that unfolds at the volatile intersection of translation, readership, and authorship. It frames interpretation as a hermeneutic wager, positing that the perceived instabilities within these domains are not deficiencies but the very conditions that grant a text its enduring vitality. The inquiry is threefold. The first section analyses translation as a secondary authorial act, using the manifold translations of the Ramayana and the King James Bible to illustrate how cultural and ideological choices create new literary works. The second section employs reader-response theory, using The Little Prince as a case study to demonstrate how a text functions as a hermeneutic mirror, reflecting the reader’s evolving consciousness. The final section reframes the debate on authorial intent through Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of the polyphonic novel, arguing that authors like Dostoevsky perform an intentional abdication of monologic authority. The paper concludes that literature lives not despite its ambiguities and instabilities, but because of them, perpetually renewed by the interpretive gamble.

Keywords: Hermeneutics, Translation Studies, Reader-Response Theory, Polyphony, Authorial Intent, Literary Meaning, Bakhtin

Article Info: Received: 18 Mar 2026; Received in revised form: 16 Apr 2026; Accepted: 20 Apr 2026; Available online: 26 Apr 2026

DOI: 10.22161/ijels.112.81