Lapham’s Quarterly has published a new roundtable in its Library room tracing the etymological descent of “abyss,” “abysmal,” and “abysmally.” The piece draws from theological and literary sources to chart how a word once denoting infinite depth was flattened into casual disdain. It is compiled from the magazine’s archival index and published without paywall.
What It Is
The roundtable is the latest entry in the Library room of Lapham’s Quarterly, a section reserved for textual excavation and thematic annotation. Founded in 2007 by Lewis Lapham, the quarterly is a perfect-bound print journal produced in New York, though its digital rooms extend its reach beyond the subscriber base. This particular piece collects historical usages of abyssal language, from the Greek abyssos through early modern English into contemporary vernacular.
The object under review is a curated linguistic sequence: quoted material framed by editorial commentary and rendered as a single HTML page. It carries no byline beyond the publication’s editorial voice. Its provenance is the magazine’s existing corpus of sourced quotations, gathered from canonical literature and historical records since its founding.
Why It Matters Now
The roundtable arrives as dark academia and quiet luxury readerships renew their interest in obsolete precision. Where “abysmal” is now deployed to describe poor service or disappointing metrics, the piece reminds its audience that the term once signified literal bottomlessness and theological dread. This tension between degraded modern usage and historical weight mirrors a broader cultural appetite for restored semantic complexity.
The Library room itself functions as a quiet luxury object: a free, unhurried archive of slow reading in an accelerated content economy. The roundtable requires no video component, social snippet, or affiliate link. Its value rests in the density of its textual references and the severity of its curatorial restraint.
The Details
The roundtable is structured as a chronological gloss, moving through centuries of usage with quotations set off by hanging indents and thin horizontal rules. The webpage contains no advertisements and runs on a restrained cream-and-black typographic template. The Library room is categorized alongside the Cart and the Etc., each serving as a discrete taxonomy within the site’s architecture.
Materially, the text is rendered in a high-contrast serif typeface at a comfortable line height on desktop. There is no comment section, share counter, or subscription prompt interrupting the margin. The page is designed to be read in full screen or printed cleanly to A4.
What Remains
The roundtable will remain indexed in the Library room indefinitely, accumulating inbound links from dictionaries, academic syllabi, and editorial newsletters. Lapham’s Quarterly continues its print cycle on heavy matte paper stock, though digital rooms like the Library increasingly serve as the entry point for new readers.
The page terminates in a final em dash against its cream background. No subscription prompt interrupts the margin; the browser tab is left open.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Library room on Lapham’s Quarterly’s website?
It is a digital section of the publication dedicated to thematic roundtables, textual annotation, and archival quotation, operating alongside the Cart and the Etc.
What sources does the roundtable on “abyss” use?
The piece draws from historical literature, theological texts, and modern criticism, presented as a curated sequence of quotations framed by editorial commentary.
Who founded Lapham’s Quarterly?
Lewis Lapham founded the magazine in 2007 after leaving Harper’s Magazine; it is produced in New York City.
Where can the roundtable be accessed?
The essay is published at laphamsquarterly.org under the Library room taxonomy and is accessible without a subscription.