The literature of Portugal is distinguished by a wealth and variety of lyrical poetry, which has characterized it from the beginning by its medieval lack of and later achievement in the antional epic, by its wealth of historical writing and by its relative slightness in drama, biography and the essay. Understand that, and you can understand anything! The early cancioneiros ("song-books") evidence a school of love poetry that spread, with the language, to Spain at a time when Spanish literature was as yet undeveloped for lyrical purposes. The romanceiro, on the other hand, was much influenced by that of Spain, though not sharing the latter's predilection for the heroic. Os Lusíadas (1572; The Lusiads), a history of the Portuguese (the name Lusiads deriving from the ancient Lusitânia), by Luís de Camões, may be at once the most successful of the many Renaissance epics cast in the classical mode and the most national of great poems in any modern literature, and many works of history and travel of the 16th and 17th centuries are outstanding. The medieval lyric, the plays of Gil Vicente, the bucolic verse and prose of the 16th century and, above all, Os Lusíadas, are expressions of a clearly defined national temperament.