With astounding tenacity, though hitherto largely unremarked, reflection on the French Revolution in German drama of the two centuries following it has made consequential use of the play-within-a-play form. In this process, the revolutionary 'drama of history' has been transposed into an aesthetic mode which, in this context, gains a heightened epistemic significance for the perception of history. By aesthetically demythologizing the revolutionary myth, the self-referential drama achieves a comprehensive critique of the modern understanding of history. In the last instance, this critique also thematizes the limits of the dramatic form itself.