Pastoral


The primitive simplicity of a world in which kings could be shepherds, the abrupt and mysterious manner of the prophets, the violent passions of bronze-age fighting men, the background of tents and flocks and desert and mountain, the village homeliness of Our Lord’s parables and metaphors, now first, I suspect, became a positive literary asset.

(They Asked for a Paper: Papers and Essays by C. S. Lewis, 1962. "The Literary Impact of the Authorised Version," Page 44-45 @ https://www.fadedpage.com/books/20150423/html.php, accessed July 20, 2023)

Pastoral love poems have a rustic setting and portray the lovers as shepherd and shepherdess. They includes the invitation to love, praise of the beloved, emblematic blazons (lists of the features of the beloved, with each feature compared to an object in nature), courtship and wedding poems, and songs of separation, longing, and reunion.

Song of Solomon is a collection of pastoral love poems.

(The Origin of the Bible: Newly Updated by F. F. Bruce, J. I. Packer, Philip W. Comfort, and Carl F. H. Henry, 2020. The Bible as Literature by Leland Ryken, Page 141)