1. literary or artistic works depicting rural life in an idealized way
Usage: literature; art
2. musical compositions with a rural or countryside theme
Usage: music

Examples

• The poet wrote several pastorals celebrating farm life.
• Beethoven’s pastorals evoke peaceful countryside scenes.
• The art gallery featured a collection of 18th-century pastorals.
• These pastorals romanticize the simplicity of rural existence.
• The composer’s pastorals include sounds of birds and flowing streams.
• Literary pastorals often contrast city corruption with rural purity.