By the mid-Southern Song dynasty, exam training had developed into a special procedure that required the examinee to be fully preoccupied with exam studies in order to grasp the exam skills. By comparison, poetry and prose seemed to be of little importance. Thus, the position of poetry was marginalized. Under the circumstances, among the literati there developed an idea that only the examinees who failed to pass the civil service examination, and the hermits who stayed away from official circles, were interested in poetry. Meanwhile, the fashion of travelling to visit the celebrities with requests for favour appeared among the marginal poets. Their behaviours incurred contempt from the upper strata literati who had earned their official posts through success in exams. As a result, the identity of “poet” became a special mark attached to a specific group. Furthermore, the popular opinion which prevailed in the late Song, that composing poems could result in difficult circumstances, reflected the real situation of marginal poets. But the key reason lay in their failure in exams. Unexpectedly, the interruption of the civil service examination for forty years, in the early Yuan dynasty freed the literati of south China from the bondage of exam learning. The erstwhile examinees turned their intelligence to poetry composition. Therefore, the position of poetry was elevated. However, the fashion of visiting celebrities was retained from the Song to the Yuan. On the other hand, the influence of exam training still existed. It appeared in the poem-composing, poetic criticism, and literary activities of literati groups. Consequently, the interruption of the civil service examination in the early Yuan did not bring about a rupture in Chinese literary history, which, on the contrary, maintained its continuity to a great extent. For the study of Chinese literary history, the fact cannot be ignored.