Though a cornerstone of all research and evaluation, rigour in scholarship is a relatively recent concept, which is poorly defined and never interrogated. This article traces the dark history of the idea, beginning with intolerance, harshness and punishment, and slowly rising to something admirable in the industrial period, whereupon it is immediately seen in opposition to creative method. The text argues that, in the arts and humanities, rigour is only legitimate when built around dialectical relationships with subjectivity. It calls for the deconstruction of rigour as an academic ideal that superintends the voice and imagination of the artist or scholar.