Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Jane Hirshfield's "To Judgment: An Assay" grapples with the complex relationship between judgment and human life, considering how our evaluative faculties influence not only the world around us but also our perception of ourselves. The poem embarks on a nuanced, multi-layered examination of the act of judgment, exploring its role in shaping human consciousness and determining destiny.

The opening lines present judgment as transformative: "You change a life / as eating an artichoke changes the taste / of whatever is eaten after." Here, judgment is likened to an experience that leaves an indelible mark, altering how subsequent experiences are perceived. Yet Hirshfield insists that judgment is "not objectively present at all," implying that it exists within us as an abstract function of mind, rather than a concrete entity.

The poem utilizes various images-a cat, a piano, an iron spigot-to consider the different facets of judgment. For instance, the piano is described as "that good servant," lending herself "to what asks," which the speaker also aspires to be. Here, Hirshfield investigates the tension between passivity and agency in the act of judgment. Like the piano, judgment serves the person who exercises it but can also lead to irrevocable outcomes.

Yet, the exercise of judgment is not always as neutral or benign as playing a piano. It can have the harsh finality of a "boy-king entering Persia" who decrees, "Burn it," and it burns. This image illustrates the devastating power of judgment, which can annihilate entire worlds, both metaphorically and literally. In another example, the "biologist Haldane" judges that beetles must be "especially loved by God," for "He had made so many." Here, judgment can be "tender," revealing the softer, more compassionate aspects of evaluative thought. Yet these moments of tenderness cannot redeem judgment in the eyes of the speaker.

The concluding lines of the poem delve into self-reflection. The speaker identifies judgment as being "too much in me," revealing an internal struggle. In order to love judgment, the speaker feels the need to "erase" it entirely, to remove its "measuring adjectives" and "nouns," which suggests that judgment is so deeply ingrained that it shapes even our self-perception. The speaker longs for a world where things are what they are, "not beautiful, not cold, only the color of butter."

The poem culminates in a realization that judgment is perhaps an inescapable part of human nature, "Helpless to not." Just as a newborn wolf has "no choice but [to] hunt the wolf milk," we too are wired to judge, to evaluate, to make choices that shape our world and ourselves.

"To Judgment: An Assay" offers a rich and intricate analysis of judgment, encapsulating its transformative and sometimes destructive power, its passivity and its agency, its harshness and its tenderness. It questions not only how we judge the world but also how these judgments shape our very being. In this thoughtful interrogation, Hirshfield paints a multi-dimensional picture of judgment as both an inherent and fraught aspect of human life.

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