Who is Goethe from Memories, Dreams, Reflections and what is their importance?

Goethe was one of Germany's greatest writers in the 1800s. His work represented the "Sturm und Drang" phase of German literature. As Europe was climbing out of or coming down off of the Romantic era, they moved into Goethe.

Goethe's work Faust was recommended to Jung by his mother, and it provided him with the best answers to and conceptions of evil that he had ever known. He finished Faust before graduating from Gymnasium, which is the secondary education in that part of the world for "boys [and now also girls] with academic potential".