v.
born 0441; 1524/25, Lisbon
died June 10, 1580, Lisbon
Portuguese poet.
A member of the impoverished aristocracy, he may have spent about 17 years in India. His masterpiece, the epic The Lusiads (1572), extols glorious deeds in Portuguese history as it recounts Vasco da Gama 's discovery of the sea route to India. His numerous lyric pieces (together with many apocryphal poems) appeared posthumously in editions of the poetry collection Rimas (from 1595). He also wrote dramatic works, including Filodemo (1587), in which he developed the auto , a kind of morality play, and the comedy The Two Amphitryons (1587). He had an unparalleled impact on Portuguese and Brazilian literature and is regarded as Portugal's national poet.