The narrator begins to joke with the bird. Maybe to shed the fear and embarrassment he felt in that moment. He pays it a compliment and even asks what is its name is. “Night’s Plutonian shore” is referencing the realm between the living and the dead in Greek mythology. The River Styx.

Thanks @FiggyBonfiglio, that makes perfect sense! Love it when something clicks into place in my head.

@no_egrets I believe Poe was telling the Raven to swear on the River Styx and tell the truth about his name

Note that “obeisance” means to essentially pay respect to something. The raven flew into the room without paying any attention or respect to the owner of the house, our narrator. It flies and immediately sits above the door on a statue of Pallas, another name for the Goddess Athena.

This is a transition into a flashback, but with details such as “bleak December”, and “dying ember” this flashback is not a pleasant one. It can also be specifically interpreted as a flashback of death because of the act of a dying fire and December is in the dead of winter.

The narrator stands in the doorway, staring into darkness, wondering what it was that was knocking when suddenly a dark thought enters into his mind: Maybe it is the ghost of Lenore.

It is the definition of insanity to keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Nevertheless, the Narrator puts all is hopes for happiness in the response of the Raven only to here once again its cruel “Nevermore”.

The Narrator is desperate and angry. He screams at the Raven, calling it an evil prophet. Maybe he hopes to get a new answer. He asks if he will ever meet his love Lenore on the distant shore of “Aidenn”. Which here, means paradise or Heaven. The Afterlife.

It also becomes clear here that the speaker is torturing himself to trade the numbness of grief for pain. He knows well that the Raven will give one answer only, ever- “Nevermore”. He seeking the hopeless answer from the Raven is symbolic of him wallowing in his grief, asking questions he knows the answer to, especially true if the Raven is read as a figment of the speakers subconscious.

He ignores the knocking. He tries to distract himself from it, and from the loss of his Lenore, by burying his head in these books.

This first part of the line could be the first sort of clue the audience gets about the speaker being afraid of the night, he really wants it to be tomorrow, but why? Maybe because the night scares him or more so because its easier to grieve at night especially for a lost love. Then, moving forward we have the speaker trying to use his previously mentioned books to relieve his pain, or as a coping mechanism.

The question that must be asked is why did Poe pick Athena as the statue for the Raven to perch on? Why this allusion? He could have picked Hades the god of death to follow the motif, but he choses the god of wisdom and war, this could be for two purposes; one showing the wisdom of the Raven, that it is so much more than just a bird, and also because of the war aspect is could show the war going on inside the speaker between his logical reasoning and overwhelming emotion.

It is also worth mentioning that Peter Simon Pallas was a German naturalist who named many birds in the 18th century. The bust is surely Pallas Athena, not Peter Simon Pallas, but Poe juxtaposes the live bird on a bust of someone who tried to name (place labels upon) birds in general.