Writing English Literature Essays

I'm a first year English Literature student at a (top 5) university in the UK and am really struggling to wrap my head around many of the finer (and not so fine!) points of essay writing. I got through A level with a good grade and am a competent close-reader, my problem is that I can't structure, plan, or execute an essay to save my life. Most of my work at A-level was very 'loose'. I have a tendency to ramble and my focus would often wander. I've tightened things up a little since starting my degree in October, but am still finding the essay writing side of things really tough. I'd really, REALLY appreciate it if someone could log on and answer some of the below questions (in detail please). I've fielded them to my tutors by their replies have been pretty unsatisfactory, bordering on evasive. My questions are:
1. What does a literature essay actually set out to do? The emphasis at degree level seems to be on putting forward an argument, but an argument for what? Here's a sample question, for example, from one of my university's past papers: ''The ideals of humanism and the court are fundamentally incompatible' discuss'. Now, the way I would naturally want to approach this question is to find out the main ideals of each, meditate on them for a bit, and then look for some overlap. My argument might be something like: many of the ideals are incompatible but some of them dovetail. The problem is, that doesn't feel very literary to me. It's more of a historical argument (I think) that I'm making and I don't really know how I'd integrate a literary text into it, much less make that the focus of it, at all. At A-level the questions were very ********ty, always something like, how does so-and-so present this theme, and you could write a couple of pages of very 'imaginative' material and still get an A/A*. You didn't even have to make much of a formal argument.
2. How do you integrate historical and philosophical/intellectual context into an answer? Again, this is something my university is very keen on pushing and I find all the extra-contextual stuff really interesting, I just don't know how to use it in an essay. I always feel as though I'm just mentioning it alongside my analysis of the text. So, for example, a recent essay I wrote argued that a text was trying to warn its readers away from the pursuit of material wealth. The first 1/3rd of the essay or so set out the context - an explanation of why people (during the period) would have been worried about the accumulation of capital, the possible negative effects of it on their spirit etc. I then argued that this was a theme in the text and showed how it developed. I never really felt that I integrated the two though. The thrust of my argument seemed to be operating on the premise that there was a general contemporary concern about A, A is explored in this text, therefore the text was probably responding to contemporary concerns about A. All very wishy washy stuff. It always feels very speculative, and very un-concrete. The general tenor of the logic seems to be: this looks a bit like this, therefore the two probably have something in common.
3. What is a literary argument? How does it differ from a historical one? A mathematical one? I just don't know. My goal is to be able to write essays that are practically watertight, really highly structured and rigorously logical. I also don't understand what perspective you're meant to be adopting? Are you arguing for what the author intended the text (or a theme in the text) to mean? Or how the readers of the period would have/could have interpreted it? Modern readers? Can you write a 1st class essay without mentioning historical context at all? What is the point in mentioning historical context? Also what is the point in close reading? I understand how you might use it to point out ambiguities that develop a texts meaning or complicate it, but trotting out some crap about how a rhyme emphasises something doesn't seem to me to be that productive at all?

Sorry for all the questions, I'm just really struggling here and could REALLY REALLY REALLY use some solid answers to these.
Varsityslut69