Shepherd

==In popular culture==
{{Main|idyll|pastoralism}}
[[File:Eugene Verboeckhoven, A Shepherdess with her Flock.jpg|thumb|''A Shepherdess with her Flock'' by [[Eugène Joseph Verboeckhoven|Verboeckhoven]]]]

The shepherd, with other such figures as the [[goatherd]], is the inhabitant of idealized [[Arcadia (utopia)|Arcadia]], which is an idyllic and natural countryside. These works are, indeed, called [[pastoral]], after the term for herding. The first surviving instances are the ''Idylls'' of [[Theocritus]], and the ''Eclogues'' of [[Virgil]], both of which inspired many imitators such as [[Edmund Spenser]]'s ''[[The Shepheardes Calender]]''. The shepherds of the pastoral are often heavily conventional and bear little relation to the actual work of shepherds.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Johnson |first=Lynn Staley |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BbuqAkgCZJoC&pg=PA63 |title=The Shepheardes Calender: An Introduction |publisher=Penn State Press |year=2010 |location=University Park |page=63|isbn=978-0271041001 }}</ref>

In the poem "The passionate shepherd to his love", by Christopher Marlowe, a shepherd is depicted as a partaker of rural paradise, and capable of giving things worth more than that a town resident could give.<ref>{{Cite web |last=GradeSaver |title=Christopher Marlowe's Poems The Passionate Shepherd to His Love Summary and Analysis |url=http://www.gradesaver.com/christopher-marlowes-poems/study-guide/summary-the-passionate-shepherd-to-his-love |website=www.gradesaver.com|date=October 26, 2020 }}</ref>

Many tales involving [[Child abandonment#In literature|foundlings]] portray them being rescued by shepherds: [[Oedipus]], [[Romulus and Remus]], the title characters of [[Longus]]'s ''Daphnis and Chloe'', and ''[[The Winter's Tale]]'' by [[William Shakespeare]]. These characters are often of much higher social status than the characters who save and raise them, the shepherds themselves being secondary characters. Similarly, the heroes and heroines of [[fairy tale]]s written by the ''[[précieuses]]'' often appeared as shepherds and shepherdesses in pastoral settings, but these figures were royal or noble, and their simple setting does not cloud their innate nobility.<ref>{{Cite book |last=[[Lewis Seifert]] |title=The Marvelous in Context: The Place of the Contes de Fées in Late Seventeenth Century France |work=The Great Fairy Tale Tradition: From Straparola and Basile to the Brothers Grimm |year=2001 |isbn=0-393-97636-X |editor-last=Jack Zipes |pages=920–921|publisher=W.W. Norton }}</ref>