1. Allegory: A figurative work in which a surface narrative carries a secondary, symbolic or metaphorical meaning. In The Faerie Queene, for example, Red Cross Knight is a heroic knight in the literal narrative, but also a figure representing Everyman in the Christian journey. Many works contain allegories or are allegorical in part, but not many are entirely allegorical.
2. Bildungsroman: a novel of development, which is sometimes referred to as a coming of age story. The Bildungsroman is a novel of education.
3. Characterization: the way an author presents characters. In direct presentation, a character is described by the author, the narrator or the other characters. In indirect presentation, a character's traits are revealed by action and speech.
4. Dialect: The language of a particular district, class, or group of persons. It encompasses the sounds, grammar, and diction employed by a specific people as distinguished from other persons either geographically or socially. Dialect, as a major technique of characterization, is the use by persons in a narrative of distinct varieties of language to indicate a person’s social or geographical status, and is used by authors to give an illusion of reality to fictional characters. It is sometimes used to differentiate between characters.
5. Irony: the discrepancy between what is said and what is meant, what is said and what is done, what is expected or intended and what happens, what is meant or said and what others understand. Sometimes irony is classified into types: in situational irony, expectations aroused by a situation are reversed; in dramatic irony, the audience knows more than the characters in the play, so that words and action have additional meaning for the audience.
Irony is often confused with sarcasm and satire.
6. Picaresque: Derives from Spanish picaro, a rogue, and is usually an autobiographical chronicle of a rascal’s travels and adventures as s/he makes his/her way through the world more by wits than industry. A picaresque is usually episodic or loose in structure. It is often highly realistic, offering detailed description and uninhibited expression. A picaresque often involves a satire of social classes
7. Sarcasm is one kind of irony; it is when one means the opposite of what one says. For example, sarcasm can be praise which is really an insult, and it generally involves malice, the desire to put someone down, e.g., "This is my brilliant son, who failed out of college."
8. Satire: The use of humor and wit with a critical attitude, irony, sarcasm, or ridicule for exposing or denouncing the weaknesses and faults of mankind’s activities and institutions, such as folly, stupidity, or vice. This usually involves both moral judgment and a desire to help improve a custom, belief, or tradition.
9. Style: manner of expression; how a speaker or writer says what he says.
10. Symbolism: the systematic use of recurrent symbols or images in a work to create an added level of meaning. Example: Gatsby’s oversized mansion and the green light he stares at from his lawn can be interpreted symbolically.
12. Tone: the writer's attitude toward the material and/or readers. Tone may be playful, formal, intimate, angry, serious, ironic, outraged, baffled, tender, serene, depressed, etc.
13. Tragicomedy: drama or film in which the serious actions, harsh truths, and threatening situations of tragedy are combined with the lighter tone and generally happy conclusions of comedy.