Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur is usually classified as a romance. This is due in part to the fact that the dominant concerns in Malory scholarship of the last two generations have been source study and the unity debate rather than genre criticism. Neither of these approaches, however, answers the questions raised by the Morte's inconsistencies or genre. Vinaver argues these problems away by treating the Morte as eight separate romances, others treat it as quasi-history, and Brewer and Field both classify it as romance with some unusual features, but none of these studies adequately explains the fact that the Morte' s essentially tragic ending contradicts one of the primary characteristics of mediaeval romance. This thesis thus contends that the Morte Darthur is currently misunderstood because its genre is misinterpreted. Before examining genre in the Morte Darthur, however, it is necessary to establish what genre is, how it operates and how it is recognised in literary texts. Since the Morte is usually taken to be a romance, I also examine the romance genre in general, and offer a definition of mediaeval romance in particular: for despite the efforts of Ker, Everett, Kane, Finlayson, Barron and Burlin, the defining characteristics of mediaeval romance remain contentious. Having established paradigms for genre and romance, I then analyse genre in the Morte Darthur itself, especially the generic features which show that, instead of a romance, Malory has created a generic mixture best termed epic-romance.