Although many questions remain, this initial exploratory study into music in the prose fiction of the 17th century has brought to light significant new information.

As I stated at the beginning, like every researcher dealing with this material, I encountered the problem that 17th-century prose texts are in many ways different from the novels of today and, unfortunately, there is no comprehensive survey of the genre in the early modern period, particularly when it comes to the Netherlands. The fragmentary structure of many of the texts runs counter to our current idea of what a novel should be, and the mixing of genres arouses resistance and a sense of strangeness (although numerous ‘hybrid’ novels are currently being published, providing a counterweight to such resistance). In addition, one reason for the relative paucity of research into the subject may be that there were no generally accepted regulations governing the writing of early prose fiction. Although the omission has been rectified quite well elsewhere in Europe, such is not yet the case for the Netherlands – despite previous findings and repeated calls from literary historians to look more closely at the nature and development of early Dutch prose fiction.

One purpose of this study was to respond to such calls. To this end, the incorporation of music within the prose texts provides an effective means of access to the larger domain of literary history, and my specific focus can therefore widen out to some further, general issues. The same undoubtedly applies to research into one of the other inserted genres, discussed before. Particular attention should, of course, be paid to the ‘dialogic’ character of early modern Dutch prose fiction – to use Bakhtin's term again – which means that further research into the ways in which all these incorporated elements relate to the surrounding prose is called for.

As we have seen, music is abundantly present in prose fiction, and its influence is considerable. In more than two-thirds of the analysed corpus, music plays a role in one way or another, often thematically, but also in structural ways. Music is discussed by the characters, and they are defined by their love of or sensitivity to it.