As a literary thought trend, romanticism shares a lot in common with aestheticism, in which aesthetic beauty is the highest value and spirit pursuit for some artists and thinkers, as well as many differences in their spiritual connotation. Theoretically speaking, though aestheticism originated from romanticism, and they both reflect, criticize and surpass the enlightening modernity, there also exist many contradictions and conflicts between them, such as the noble consciousness and civilian spirit, elite and popularization, individualism and humanitarian, ideal and reality, self and society, this shore and that shore, etc. Their differences are: first, romanticism expresses the subject's inner feelings and it reflects a subjective pursuit, while aestheticism emphasizes the inter-subjectivity; second, romanticism returns to the medieval utopian world and natural peace and harmony, while aestheticism heads to aesthetic freedom and surpasses.