largely as a result of his system of aesthetics, is perhaps the most influential recent philosopher in the history of literature; Thomas Hardy's later novels frequently allude to Schopenhauerian themes, particularly in Jude the Obscure. Schopenhauer also had an important influence on Joseph Conrad. Schopenhauer also had a less specific but more widely diffused influence on the Symbolist movement in European literature. Lionel Johnson also refers to Schopenhauer's aesthetics in his essay The Cultured Faun. Jacques Derrida's entire oeuvre has been hugely influential for so-called continental philosophy and the understanding of the role of literature in modernity. Other works of fiction considered to have philosophical content include: Abubacer, Philosophus Autodidactus Albert Camus, The Outsider Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness Fyodor Dostoevsky, Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment Jostein Gaarder, Sophie's World Hermann Hesse, The Glass Bead Game James Joyce, Ulysses Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being Ibn al-Nafis, Theologus Autodidactus Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain Iris Murdoch, The Sea, the Sea Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time Dante Alighieri, Divine Comedy William Shakespeare, Macbeth William Shakespeare, Hamlet Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan Ilyich Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace Sergio Troncoso, The Nature of Truth Marguerite Yourcenar, Memoirs of Hadrian Philosophical writing as literature A number of philosophers are read for the literary merits of their works apart from their philosophical content. The philosophy in the Meditations of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius is unoriginal Stoicism, but the Meditations are still read for their literary merit and for the insight they give into the workings of the emperor's mind. Arthur Schopenhauer's philosophy is noted for the quality and readability of its prose, as are some of the works of the British Empiricists, such as Locke and Hume. Søren Kierkegaard's style is frequently regarded as poetic artistry as well as philosophical, especially in Fear and Trembling and Either/Or. Friedrich Nietzsche's works such as Thus Spoke Zarathustra frequently resemble prose poetry and contain imagery and allusion instead of argument. Philosophy in literature Philosophers in literature Socrates appears in a highly fictionalized guise, as a comic figure and the object of mockery, in The Clouds by Aristophanes. In the play, Socrates appears hanging from a basket, where he delivers oracles such as: I'd never come up with a single thing about celestial phenomena,if I did not