What Does Pastoral Mean?

Pastoral is a reference to the lifestyle of shepherds and pastoralists. It denotes a rural life. It is usually associated with people raising animals. They often live a nomadic lifestyle as they keep on moving in search of new pastures as per the seasons, water and feed. It is a genre in art be it literature, paintings or music.

It is often a poem which shows a  rural life in a peaceful, idealised way. Such poems are usually distanced from reality. It often is an expression of an urban writer's nostalgic image of the peace and simplicity of the life of shepherds and other rural folk. Often it is in the form of a story in described in a poetic manner where shepherds and shepherdesses fall in love and pass the time singing and playing songs.