What interests me most about The Lay Of The Last Minstrel is the minstrel himself. I am not sure if everyone else did, but I read the introduction before starting the cantos. The introduction describes the minstrel as "infirm and old;/His withered cheek and tresses grey,/Seemed to have known a better day". The minstrel seems to not only be the teller of the great poem, but also a representation of the coming death (or the already dead) era of chivalry and general knighthood tales.
We have not really read something like The Lay Of The Last Minstrel in this class. It reminds me of the work I have read for my British literature survey class from the 1400s, 1500s, and 1600s. I think this poem is unique because it comes at the end of an era. The minstrel is playing his last song because there is no one else left from the glowing age he once inhabited.
I too read the introduction and think that you make a very valid point about the minstrel. He is the one telling the story so it would make sense for him to represent something bigger.
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