This thesis explores Walter Benjamin s work and, more specifically, his ideas for a commentary on miniaturization (Verkleinerung) that would be inspired by Goethe s The New Melusine (Die neue Melusine), to elaborate a theoretical perspective that envisions the process of miniaturization and the miniature itself as creative apparatuses for artistic and literary practices. This study also investigates Benjamin as a collector, focusing on his collection of small objects -such as miniatures, old toys, snow globes, children s books, stamps, and postal cards- and his interest on the topic of childhood, which emerged during his time in exile. This later interest would also allow the Jewish-German writer to develop not only the key concepts of monad, collection, and technique, but also the imagery that would become crucial to his work -namely, the child, the collector, and the ragman. This constellation of concepts and imagery will act as a methodological device in this thesis, which understands the miniaturization process as a reproduction technique and the miniature as an aesthetic form that is itself connected to the notion of childhood. By adopting the format of a journal composed of notations and critical comments that position both the miniaturization process and the miniature as creative apparatuses for literature and the arts, this study also investigates not only literary writings that adopt the idea of the miniature as a symbol, but the works of artists that touch on the topic of miniaturization as well.