Nogami Toyoichirō's Noh Translation Theories and the Primacy of Performance

Since his death in 1950, Nogami Toyoichirō is remembered primarily as a Noh scholar, but his theorization of translation is worth close and sustained critical scrutiny to understand not only his ideas about translation but also how they register the cultural currents that prompted his obsessive return to the topic throughout the 1930s. Further, his essay, “Noh Song Translation”, the twelfth and final chapter of The Rebirth of Noh [nōnosaisei] (Nogami 1935b), shows Nogami not only acting as a conduit for the circulation of imported notions of translation in Japan, but also in the process of formulating an af ective theory of Noh translation based on the rhythm of the Japanese language and performing body. This paper looks at “Noh Song Translation” and traces how Nogami's translation theory, based on scholarly approaches to the translation of classic Greek and Latin works, subtly morphs under the influence of key Noh performance principles to emphasise the primacy of performance. ¹