Comparing and contrasting Ginzburg's works with 20th century literary trends that broached the meaning of the world and of literature itself, such as Absurdism and the Nouveau Roman, we aim to identify the implications of insignificance from an axiological and a semantic viewpoint.Ginzburg's works create an impression of insignificance using writing style and specific techniques to give the significant and insignificant equal weight. Our main purpose is to show that, from an axiological viewpoint, Ginzburg's works do not promote the small or insignificant at the expense of the large and significant. The author uses understatement to downplay the significant (History, God), then lets it re-emerge, both intentionally through written networks of symbols and recurrences, and subconsciously through the rhythm and musicality of her specific writing style. In a context where everything has a meaning, readers are required to amplify the scope of the written word and interpret the manifold signs and inter-textual references. Indeed, Ginzburg aims to represent a reality where everything has equal importance, precisely because the significant and insignificant are equal when reality is portrayed from a totalising perspective that is inspired by metaphysical cons! iderations and influenced by Jungian psychoanalysis and Jewish mysticism.
