The Pride of Lions - Joanna Preston

Question 1

THEMES (4)

Answer 1

love and relationships; passion and attraction; transformation of self; domesticity in marriage/relationships

Question 2

FORM

Answer 2

allegorical poem; chronological narrative: begins ‘in media res’

Question 3

But before we could marry, he became a lion–

Answer 3

thick pelted, and rich with the musk of beast.

Question 4

(…) for days

he wouldn’t let me groom him–

Answer 4

slapped me away with a suede paw,

snarled against my throat.

Question 5

He would not eat fruit, or drink milk,

Answer 5

but tore meat from the bones I provided.

Question 6

I stroke his saffron hide

Answer 6

(…) draw him up around me, ardent

as the gleam of his topaz eyes

Question 7

–the hypnotic lash of his tail,

Answer 7

the rasp of his tongue on my thighs.

Question 8

His claws caught in the carpet

so I stripped the rugs from the floor

Answer 8

and polished the boards until they gleamed

and rang with the chime of his nails

Question 9

DICTION

semantic field of refinement (5)

Answer 9

burnished, groom, polished, gleamed, rang