Versification
Long classical verse narratives were in stichic forms, prescribing a metre but not specifying any interlineal relations. This tradition is represented in English letters by the use of blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter), as by both Brownings and many later poets. But since Petrarch and Dante complex stanza-forms have also been used for verse narratives, including terza rima (aba bcb cdc etc.) and ottava rima (abababcc), and modern poets have experimented widely with adaptations and combinations of stanza-forms.
The stanza most specifically associated with the verse novel is the Onegin stanza, invented by Pushkin in Eugene Onegin. It is an adapted form of the Shakespearean sonnet, retaining the three quatrains plus couplet structure but reducing the metre to iambic tetrameter and specifying a distinct rhyme-scheme: the first quatrain is cross-rhymed (abab), the second couplet-rhymed (ccdd), and the third arch-rhymed (or chiasmic, effe), so that the whole is ababccddeffegg. Additionally, Pushkin required that the first rhyme in each couplet (the a, c, and e rhymes) be unstressed (or 'feminine'), and all others stressed (or 'masculine'): not all those using the Onegin stanza have followed the prescription, but Vikram Seth notably did so, and the cadence of the unstressed rhymes is an important factor in his manipulations of tone.
Read more about this topic: Verse Novel