Pastoral - form of poetry

[baran.amad]

The origination of the pastoral was the Greek poet Theocritus, who in the third century B.C. wrote poems representing the life of Sicilian shepherds. ("pastor" is Latin for 'shepherd.") Virgil later imitated Theocritus in his Latin Eclogues, and in doing so established the enduring model for the traditional Pastoral: a deliberately conventional poem expressing an urban poet's nostalgic image of the supposed peace and simplicity of the life of shepherds and other rural folk in an idealized natural setting. The conventions that hundreds of later poets imitate e from Virgil's imitations of Theocritus include a shepherd reclining under a spreading beech tree and meditating the rural muse, or piping as though the would ne'er grow old, or engaging in a friendly singing contest, or expressing his good or bad fortune in a love affair, or grieving over the death of a fellow shepherd. From this last type developed the pastoral elegy, which persisted long after the other traditional types had lost their popularity. Other terms often used synonymously with pastoral are idyll, from the title of the Theocritus' pastorals; eclogue (literary, "a selection"), from the title of pastorals; and bucolic poetry, from Greek word for "herdsman."

Source: A Glossary of Literary Terms by M.H. Abrams