What exactly is “satire”? And is it supposed to be funny? In origin, it certainly was not. The word “satire” is first recorded in Britain in Alexander Barclay’s The Shyp of Folys of the World, a 1509 translation of Sebastian Brant’s Das Narrenschyff into English verse. The German work, published in 1494, was a fierce attack, in 112 verse chapters, on the evils of the day, especially in the Church. Barclay himself only uses the word once, in his poem “Of them that ar alway borowynge”, referring to it as “this satyre”. By “satyre” he meant an individual literary work. The word came from classical literature. It entered English either via middle French or from classical Latin. The French satire or satyre meant specifical