Short answers, pulled from the story.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German polymath who lived from the 28th of August 1749 to the 22nd of March 1832 and is widely regarded as the most influential writer in the German language. He worked as a poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic, producing plays, poetry, and treatises on botany, anatomy, and colour.
The Sorrows of Young Werther, published in 1774, is a short epistolary novel about an obsessive young man driven to despair by his unrequited love for the young Lotte, ending in his suicide. It made Goethe famous, is often considered the spark of the Romantic movement, and can arguably be called the world's first best-seller.
Goethe moved to Weimar in 1775 after being invited to the court of Karl August, Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, on the strength of his fame as the author of The Sorrows of Young Werther. He remained there for the rest of his life, becoming the Duke's friend and chief adviser and holding offices including a seat on the privy council and the war and highway commissions.
Goethe independently discovered the human intermaxillary bone, now called Goethe's bone, in 1784 using an elephant's skull, and was the first to prove its existence in all mammals. He also formulated a theory of plant metamorphosis published in 1790, published his Theory of Colours in 1810, and collected 17,800 rock samples by the time of his death.
Faust is Goethe's epic closet drama, completed in stages over decades. Faust Part One was published in 1808 and created a sensation, while Faust Part Two was finished in 1832, the year of his death, and published posthumously.
Goethe died in Weimar in 1832 of apparent heart failure and is buried in the Ducal Vault at Weimar's Historical Cemetery. His last words are usually abridged as Mehr Licht, meaning more light, though the original quote was longer and its exact wording is disputed.