Onegin stanza Onegin stanza does not divide into smaller stanzas of four lines or two in an obvious way. There are many different ways the sonnet can be divided: for example, the first four lines can form a quatrain, or instead join with the "cc" to form a set. The form's flexibility allows the author more scope to change how the semantic sections are divided from sonnet to sonnet, while keeping the sense of unity provided by following a fixed rhyme scheme. Also, being written in iambic tetrameter imparts a stronger sense of motion than other sonnets, which use the more common
Verse novel 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"). In the rhyme scheme notation capitalizing masculine rhymes, this reads