My favorite project this semester was the first one, where I built Heorot in Minecraft. I liked this because first of all, the reading we did gave me a new appreciation for Beowulf. When I read it first in highschool, I hated the text, but this time around, with such a good translation, I was able to really dive into the story. So getting to explore more themes, such as hospitality, which I wrote about in addition to the build, was something new and appreciated.
The build was a challenge, mainly because I needed to pick out quotes from the book. Unlike my project of building Pandemonium, where I was able to get most of the description from a single part of the text, the description in Beowulf was scattered around. I did enjoy the challenge, though, and it was a fun build. I could focus more on the interior, and for me that was a great chance to explore decorations and ways to fit everything I wanted in the space I had. To build the structure, I researched old english buildings, and the style of the longhouses. It was fun recreating that in a game where I only have blocks to build with. The roof gave me issues in terms of what material to make it from, but I think I did it well. Overall, since it was a small build with concentrated details, I was left quite pleased with how it matched the text.
The project I did for this final is also a good build that I’m proud of, but with the scale of it and the focus on the exterior depiction, I had to take a lot of liberties and I’m left knowing that although I did my best on it, and matched as much as I could, it’s not a strict reflection of the text. Which is okay, but something I felt like I accomplished a lot more in my first build.
So overall, the build of Heorot is my favorite project that I completed.
