SOURCE: “An Approximation of Poetry: The Short Stories of John Metcalf,” in Studies in Canadian Literature, Vol. 2, No. 3, Winter, 1977, pp. 17–35.

In the following essay, Cameron examines Metcalf's conception of the short story genre as evinced in his short fiction collection The Teeth of My Father.

Many readers in Canada—but particularly critics and reviewers, it seems—tend to believe that as a literary form the novel is intrinsically superior to the short story. But, even in terms of aesthetic values—let alone in terms of moral and social values—such comparative judgments seem to me to be completely unwarranted. Can one really argue logically that a symphony is more inherently valuable than a piece of chamber music? Can one really argue logically that Michaelangelo's Sistine Chapel is more inherently valuable than Hilliard's miniature “A Courtly Sonneteer”? Indeed, can one really argue logically that the novel is more inherently...