In his new book, author Jared Diamond introduces what he calls "the Hamlet test" to determine whether prominent individuals truly make a difference in history, or whether others might have accomplished as much. Diamond argues that William Shakespeare's superiority to his Elizabethan contemporaries—including Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe and John Webster—proves Shakespeare was uniquely talented and that no peer could have written masterpieces like Hamlet had Shakespeare not done so.
The review identifies a significant flaw in this reasoning. Christopher Marlowe was stabbed to death in a pub in Deptford in 1593 at age 29, having already written Doctor Faustus and Tamburlaine and co-written the Henry VI trilogy with the young Shakespeare. Shakespeare did not begin composing his major tragedies, including Hamlet, until a decade later in his career.
Because Marlowe died young, the review argues, it is impossible to determine whether he would have matched or exceeded Shakespeare's later achievements had he lived another ten years. The review cites scholarly consensus that Hamlet and Shakespeare's other masterpieces were possible only because of Marlowe's outsized influence on the playwright.