A pastoral lifestyle (see pastoralism) is that of shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasturage. It lends its name to a genre of literature, art and music that depicts such life in an idealized manner, typically for urban audiences. A pastoral is a work of this genre.An alternative word for pastoral as a genre, both in adjectival and noun form, is bucolic, from the Greek βουκολικόν, from βουκόλος, meaning a cowherd.