Coursework focus Marxism: getting AO3 (context) embedded in your essay. NUMBER 21

"During this time" does not count as hitting AO3 in your essay.



You need to be specific, and clear.
If you are writing about Philip Larkin's The Whitsun Weddings, it was published in 1964, thus Larkin was writing during a period of considerable political change. 



The 1960s Politics
Responsibility for British policy during the 1960s was shared between the Conservative Government of 1951-64 and the Labour Government of 1964-70. There were three Prime Ministers during the period, Macmillan (Conservative 1957-63), Home (1963-4) and Wilson (1964-70). General elections were held in 1959, 1964, 1966 and 1970. During the 1959-64 Parliament, the Conservatives held a majority of just short of 100; at the start of the 1964-6 Parliament, the Labour Government had an overall majority of just three; and during the 1966-70 Parliament a majority of around 100.

The 1960s are generally believed to have been a decade of rapid change in British society. Yet, it was also a period of preoccupation with national economic decline. Both Conservative and Labour Governments attempted a variety of experiments to boost Britain's underlying growth rate and competitiveness. But most of their energies came to be absorbed in 'crisis management' as they had to fight off a series of balance of payments and currency problems. We will see that all of this had a direct effect on the question of whether the UK should join the EC.

The governments of the time found themselves caught between external economic constraints, rising public expectations as to living standards and public welfare and their own claims that the economy was in principle manageable by the state to a high degree of precision. Each government of the period thus found itself victim of a high level of public disillusionment, with large 'mid-term' swings and by-election losses entering the political equation for the first time since the war. Economic 'panaceas' accordingly succeeded one another in quick succession.

The conversion of the Labour Government seemed to complete the construction of a domestic consensus on EC membership. Governments of both major parties had come to similar conclusions about the need to join.

Larkin and his poetry

Jacob Godsell has collected some useful contextual resources on Larkin and his poetry
http://jacobgodselllclit1516.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/the-whitsun-weddings-collection.html

http://jacobgodselllclit1516.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/philip-larkin-biography.html