Short answers, pulled from the story.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe began work on the novel in the 1770s. An early version of the work remained unpublished during his lifetime until the early twentieth century.
The novel took its final shape through the encouragement and criticism of Friedrich Schiller when it was completed in the mid-1790s. The work consists of eight books with the first five based on an earlier fragment titled Wilhelm Meister's Theatrical Calling.
Goethe has Shakespeare play a prominent role in Wilhelm's growth with the theater group as he rejoiced that his name was Wilhelm and acknowledged Shakespeare as a namesake, friend, and godfather. Jarno introduces the protagonist to these dramas during their travels together and the group gives a production of Hamlet with Wilhelm playing the lead role.
Beethoven composed four settings of Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt in 1808 while Franz Schubert set eight poems from the novel in Gesänge aus Wilhelm Meister Op. 62 dating from 1826. Robert Schumann also set Kennst du das Land from book in his Lieder-Album für die Jugend Op. 79 and composed a cycle called Lieder und Gesänge aus Wilhelm Meister Op. 98a.
Romantic critic and theorist Friedrich Schlegel judged it to be of comparable importance for its age to the French Revolution and the philosophy of Johann Gottlieb Fichte. Arthur Schopenhauer cited Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship as one of the four immortal romances and described it as an intellectual novel of a higher order than the rest.