《马尔特手记》为里尔克创作生涯中的第一个高峰，它叙述一个出生没落贵族、性情孤僻敏感的丹麦青年诗人的回忆与自白，某种程度上是作者自身的写照。小说由71个没有连续情节，又不讲时间顺序的笔记体断片构成，因为共同的主题——爱、孤独、恐惧、疾病、死亡、上帝、创造等，集中表达了作者终生关注的各种精神问题，在精神暗流上构成了一个特殊的有机整体，被誉为现代存在主义最重要的先驱作品之一。(Die Anfzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge is the first peak for Rilke in his creative career, which describes the reminiscences and confessions of a young Danish poet born in a declining aristocrat with an unsocial and sensitive personality, which, to some extent, are the author's own portrayal. The novel is composed of 71 note-style fragments that have no continuous plot and no chronological order, all for the common themes - love, loneliness, fear, disease, death, god, creation, etc., concentratedly expressed a variety of mental distresses the author had been concerning for the whole life, constituted a special organic whole on the spiritual undercurrent, known as one of the most important pioneer works of modern existentialism.)