What is the difference between romantic writing and transcendentalism writing?

Answer 1

If romanticism and transcendentalism were viewed as a Venn diagram, romanticism would be a large circle and transcendentalism would be a much smaller circle wholly contained within the larger one. All transcendentalists were romantics but not all romantics were transcendentalists. Therefore, one cannot draw a clear contrast between romantic writing and transcendentalist writing. Generally however, the transcendentalists were primarily essayists, and to some degree, poets and they used these forms to espouse their belief that the ultimate secrets of life and man's relationship to God could be revealed through a close observation of nature. They also were humanists, who believed in the perfectability of mankind. They thought that all of man's evils were behaviors learned from a flawed and evil society and that by perfecting society mankind could be perfected.