An interesting theory, Shaun. Thanks for sharing it.
The popularity of his plays during his lifetime undoubtedly helped, but there's been plenty of time for the plays of Marlowe and the others to be reevaluated and claim a larger slice of attention. (Maybe that reevaluation is still to come; maybe you'll play a role in it.)
I suppose your speculation in post 65 suggests some level of agreement with the idea that Elizabethan plays are too similar for there to be room for the work of more than one Elizabethan playwright in the popular/middlebrow consciousness.
Quote:
Originally Posted by E. Shaun Russell
One could made a compelling speculative argument that had Shakespeare not existed, there are several candidates for playwrights who would have held a similar place in literary history.
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I'd learn a lot from that argument. I hope you'll make it on behalf of one more of the candidates. It would be a great subject for a book.