Dante Dante Alighieri (1265–1321), Italian poet; author of The Divine Comedy.
Eton Eton College, a school for boys in Buckinghamshire, England.
fop a dandy; a man excessively concerned about his clothes and appearance to the exclusion of deeper values.
Satyricon "Book of Satyrlike Adventures"; a first-century-A.D. comic novel attributed to Petronius.
arbiter elegantiarum Latin, "judge of elegance."
anchorite a religious recluse.
panis caelistis Latin, "bread of Heaven."
de la vieille roche French, "of the old rock."
Schubert Franz Schubert (1797–1828), Austrian composer.
Chopin Frédérick Francois Chopin (1810–49), Polish pianist and composer; resident in France from 1829 until his death.
Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827), German composer.
Madame, je suis tout joyeux French, "Madam, I am quite happy."
entrées French, "entries"; in North America, it is the main dish of the meal; in England, during Wilde's era, it was a dish served between the meat and fish courses.
taedium vitae Latin, "tedium of life."
sentinel one who keeps guard; a sentry.
alchemist one who tries to turn base metals into gold.
ascetic a person who renounces comforts to live a life of self-disci-pline, sometimes for a religious reason.
fresco the art of painting on fresh, moist plaster with earth colors dissolved in water and pressed into the plaster.
calumnies false statements meant to injure someone.
macaroni here, a term used in eighteenth-century England to describe a well-to-do young man who dressed in Continental fashions rather than in staid, bland English clothing.
