Query: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe became managing director of the theater at Weimar in England.

Relevant passages:
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe <=SEP=> Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ( -LSB- ˈgɜːrtə -RSB- -LSB- ˈjoːhan ˈvɔlfɡaŋ fɔn ˈɡøːtə -RSB- ; 28 August 1749 -- 22 March 1832 ) was a German writer and statesman . His works include epic and lyric poetry ; prose and verse dramas ; memoirs ; an autobiography ; literary and aesthetic criticism ; treatises on botany , anatomy , and colour ; and four novels . In addition , numerous literary and scientific fragments , more than 10,000 letters , and nearly 3,000 drawings by him exist .   A literary celebrity by the age of 25 , Goethe was ennobled by the Duke of Saxe-Weimar , Carl August in 1782 after taking up residence there in November 1775 following the success of his first novel , The Sorrows of Young Werther . He was an early participant in the Sturm und Drang literary movement . During his first ten years in Weimar , Goethe was a member of the Duke 's privy council , sat on the war and highway commissions , oversaw the reopening of silver mines in nearby Ilmenau , and implemented a series of administrative reforms at the University of Jena . He also contributed to the planning of Weimar 's botanical park and the rebuilding of its Ducal Palace , which in 1998 were together designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site .   His first major scientific work , the Metamorphosis of Plants , was published after he returned from a 1788 tour of Italy . In 1791 , he was made managing director of the theatre at Weimar , and in 1794 he began a friendship with the dramatist , historian , and philosopher Friedrich Schiller , whose plays he premiered until Schiller 's death in 1805 . During this period , Goethe published his second novel , Wilhelm Meister 's Apprenticeship , the verse epic Hermann and Dorothea , and , in 1808 , the first part of his most celebrated drama , Faust . His conversations and various common undertakings throughout the 1790s with Schiller , Johann Gottlieb Fichte , Johann Gottfried Herder , Alexander von Humboldt , Wilhelm von Humboldt , and August and Friedrich Schlegel have , in later years , been collectively termed Weimar Classicism .   Arthur Schopenhauer cited Wilhelm Meister 's Apprenticeship as one of the four greatest novels ever written , along with Tristram Shandy , La Nouvelle Héloïse , and Don Quixote , and Ralph Waldo Emerson selected Goethe as one of six `` representative men '' in his work of the same name , along with Plato , Emanuel Swedenborg , Michel de Montaigne , Napoleon , and William Shakespeare . Goethe 's comments and observations form the basis of several biographical works , most notably Johann Peter Eckermann 's Conversations with Goethe .

Weimar <=SEP=> Weimar ( -LSB- ˈvaɪmaɐ -RSB- ; Vimaria or Vinaria ) is a city in the federal state of Thuringia , Germany . It is located between Erfurt in the west and Jena in the east , approximately 80 km southwest of Leipzig , 170 km north of Nuremberg and 170 km west of Dresden . Together with the neighbour-cities Erfurt and Jena it forms the central metropolitan area of Thuringia with approximately 500,000 inhabitants , whereas the city itself counts a population of 65,000 . Weimar is well known because of its large cultural heritage and its importance in German history .   The city was a focal point of the German Enlightenment and home of the leading characters of the literary genre of Weimar Classicism , the writers Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller . In the 19th century , famous composers like Franz Liszt made a music centre of Weimar and later , artists and architects like Henry van de Velde , Wassily Kandinsky , Paul Klee , Lyonel Feininger and Walter Gropius came to the city and founded the Bauhaus movement , the most important German design school of the interwar period . However , the political history of 20th-century Weimar was inconsistent : it was the place where Germany 's first democratic constitution was signed after the First World War , giving its name to the Weimar Republic period in German politics ( 1918 -- 33 ) , as well as one of the cities mythologized by the National Socialist propaganda .   Until 1948 , Weimar was the capital of Thuringia . Today , many places in the city centre have been designated as UNESCO World Heritage sites ( either as part of the Weimar Classicism complex or as part of the Bauhaus complex ) and tourism is one of the leading economic sectors of Weimar . Relevant institutions in Weimar are the Bauhaus University , the Liszt School of Music , the Duchess Anna Amalia Library and two leading courts of Thuringia ( Supreme Administrative Court and Constitutional Court ) . In 1999 , Weimar was the European Capital of Culture .