BARKER, Chris. The Sage Dictionary of Cultural Studies. Sage Publications, 2004.
BUCHANAN, Ian. A Dictionary of Critical Theory. Oxford UP, 2010.
CULLER, Jonathan. Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction. New York: Oxford UP, 2011
LEITCH, VINCENT B., The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. New York: W.W.Norton and Co., 2010.
BALDICK, CHRIS. Oxford Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990.
CUDDON, J.A. (1977) The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1999.
HABIB, M. A. R. Literary Criticism: from Plato to the Present. An Introduction. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011.
LENTRICCHIA, FRANK and McLAUGHLIN, THOMAS, Eds. Critical Terms for Literary Study. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.
SELDEN, Raman, et al. Eds. A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory. Harlow: Pearson Longman, 2005.
WOLFREYS, JULIAN. Critical Keywords in Literary and Cultural Theory. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
----------. Ed. Introducing Criticism at the 21st Century. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2002.
WAUGH, Patricia. Ed. An Oxford Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism. Oxford UP, 2006.
None of the above texts is compulsory. They provide a suggested complementary bibliography for further study.
The Norton Anthologyof Theory and Criticism provides an extraordinary selection of critical writings from Georgias of Leontini (ca. 483-376 B.C.E.) to Stuart Moulthrop (b. 1957). It is divided into thematic sections, each one accompanied by a clear introduction. There is an extensive bibliography.
The rest of the suggested texts all combine extensive glossaries with useful added commentaries.