Dr Faustus and Seven Sins

Aristotle's Poetics seeks to address the different kinds of poetry, the structure of a poem, and the division of a poem into its component parts. He defines poetry as a 'medium of imitation' that seeks to represent or duplicate life through character, emotion, or action. Aristotle defines poetry very broadly, including epic poetry, tragedy, comedy, and even some kinds of music.
    Aristotle's dramatic genre are epic, tragedy and comedy are all modes of imitation but differ in their medium (rhythm, language, harmony), objects (actions of agents who are good men or bad men, men above our own level of moral goodness or below it) and manner of imitation. Manner (the poet may speak as narrator in one moment and as character in the next).
    According to Aristotle, tragedy presents men as 'nobler,' or 'better' than they are in real life. Comedy, on the other hand, shows a 'lower type' of person, and shows humans to be worse than they are in average. Epic poetry, on the other hand, imitates 'noble' men like tragedy, but only has one type of meter - unlike tragedy, which have several - and narrative in its form.
    Tragedy is the imitation of serious action and is complete in itself. Presented in dramatic form, it is expressed in language with pleasurable accessories (rhythm and harmony) and is made up of incidents arousing pity and fear which will achieve catharsis. Tragedy has six elements, which he viewed in this order of importance, plot or fable (combination of incidents), is the most important because drama is action. Characters (moral qualities of the agents) are second in importance, reveal the moral purpose. Diction or language is the expression of thought in words. Thought (theme) consists of saying what can be said and what is appropriate (philosophy). Melody (song) is an element of pleasure. And the last one is mis en scene or spectacle is a stage appearance.
      Plot is 'the soul' of tragedy. Plot consists of actions, the series of events making...