Why begin with the Baroque when, if Sengle is to be believed, in spite of a lively interest in historical fact, the period produced “keine echte Geschichtsdichtung”? In part, the answer lies in analysis of what Sengle means by the word “echt” — an argument that could also apply to Brecht's Mutter Courage. In that play, as well as in Gryphius's Carolus Stuardus, to which we devote the bulk of this chapter, the actual events portrayed are seen as being of significance principally, if not entirely, by reference to “historical” criteria which transcend the time in which they occur, and indeed earthly time as a whole. As K.-H. Habersetzer puts it, in commenting on Gryphius's Papinianus, “Historie [bleibt] nicht auf ihre Faktizität festgelegt”; it “transcends itself” because of a statement contained within it. But this is itself a “genuine” statement about history, the expression of the Baroque “Geschichtsbegriff,” which we shall outline later.

With the exception of Cardenio und Celinde, all Gryphius's “Trauerspiele” (as indeed those of Lohenstein) can be seen as historical in this sense. Carolus Stuardus, to a lesser extent Papinianus, and perhaps also Leo Armenius, deserve to be singled out for the framework common to all three heroes. Papinianus and Carolus are unequivocally political martyr-figures with religious overtones. Leo the Armenian has a dual function. He is a martyr in relation to the new usurper Michael Balbus, but at the same time he is an iconoclast and usurper himself, an object of Divine Retribution, as the apparition of the former Patriarch of Constantinople (“Tarasii Geist”) makes clear to him in a dream.