What is the setting in The Raven?

“The Raven” contains several clues that tell the reader
about the setting of the poem. They are found in stanzas 1, 2, 3, and
7.

In the first stanza, the speaker provides the reader
with the time: it was “a midnight dreary.” If you reverse the order of these two words,
you will find its description easier—a dreary midnight.  Therefore, the speaker recalls
his experience of the Raven’s visitation occurring one unexciting late night, early
morning.

Later in this same stanza, the speaker provides us
with another clue to the setting; this one provides the place: the speaker hears a
knocking at his “chamber door.” The speaker assumes that “'tis some visitor,” which
shows us that the speaker can often be found there in his chamber.  The chamber is
likely the speaker’s bedroom or a room in which he studies his books--his “many a quaint
and curious volume of forgotten lore.”

In the second
stanza, more setting related to specific time is provided by the speaker: he says this
experience occurred “in the bleak December.” (One interesting correlation here is
similarity of the adjectives used for both descriptions of time: “Midnight
dreary” and “bleak December” are equally
gloomy.) With this extra description, the reader now knows that the Raven visits the man
one midnight during December.

In the third stanza, one
additional small description is given:

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“And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each
purple curtain”

This silk
purple curtain is one of the few descriptions from the chamber itself. The flutter of
the curtain is likely an eerie occurrence that is meant to increase the speaker's
"terror." Another description of the speaker's room--the setting of this strange
tale--comes in stanza seven where the Raven perches:

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“upon a bust of Pallas just above [the speaker’s]
chamber door.”

This may be
something you wish to note, for the spot on which the Raven perches is a sculpture of
the helmeted head of Pallas Athena, an Olympian Greek goddess.  She is the goddess of
wisdom, among other things.  Depending upon what you might do with this poem later in
class (or for yourself), it might be important to note that particular of the
setting.

I’ve provided a link below to help you with other
particulars of Poe’s “The Raven.”