diff --git a/Doc/library/email.mime.rst b/Doc/library/email.mime.rst
--- a/Doc/library/email.mime.rst
+++ b/Doc/library/email.mime.rst
@@ -190,19 +190,23 @@ Here are the classes:
 
    A subclass of :class:`~email.mime.nonmultipart.MIMENonMultipart`, the
    :class:`MIMEText` class is used to create MIME objects of major type
    :mimetype:`text`. *_text* is the string for the payload.  *_subtype* is the
    minor type and defaults to :mimetype:`plain`.  *_charset* is the character
    set of the text and is passed as an argument to the
    :class:`~email.mime.nonmultipart.MIMENonMultipart` constructor; it defaults
    to ``us-ascii`` if the string contains only ``ascii`` codepoints, and
-   ``utf-8`` otherwise.
+   ``utf-8`` otherwise.  The *_charset* parameter accepts either a string or a
+   :class:`~email.charset.Charset` instance.
 
    Unless the *_charset* argument is explicitly set to ``None``, the
    MIMEText object created will have both a :mailheader:`Content-Type` header
    with a ``charset`` parameter, and a :mailheader:`Content-Transfer-Endcoding`
    header.  This means that a subsequent ``set_payload`` call will not result
    in an encoded payload, even if a charset is passed in the ``set_payload``
    command.  You can "reset" this behavior by deleting the
    ``Content-Transfer-Encoding`` header, after which a ``set_payload`` call
    will automatically encode the new payload (and add a new
    :mailheader:`Content-Transfer-Encoding` header).
+
+   .. versionchanged:: 3.5
+      *_charset* also accepts :class:`~email.charset.Charset` instances.
diff --git a/Lib/email/mime/text.py b/Lib/email/mime/text.py
--- a/Lib/email/mime/text.py
+++ b/Lib/email/mime/text.py
@@ -1,16 +1,17 @@
 # Copyright (C) 2001-2006 Python Software Foundation
 # Author: Barry Warsaw
 # Contact: email-sig@python.org
 
 """Class representing text/* type MIME documents."""
 
 __all__ = ['MIMEText']
 
+from email.charset import Charset
 from email.mime.nonmultipart import MIMENonMultipart
 
 
 
 class MIMEText(MIMENonMultipart):
     """Class for generating text/* type MIME documents."""
 
     def __init__(self, _text, _subtype='plain', _charset=None):
@@ -29,13 +30,15 @@ class MIMEText(MIMENonMultipart):
         # characters present. If not, use 'us-ascii', otherwise use utf-8.
         # XXX: This can be removed once #7304 is fixed.
         if _charset is None:
             try:
                 _text.encode('us-ascii')
                 _charset = 'us-ascii'
             except UnicodeEncodeError:
                 _charset = 'utf-8'
+        if isinstance(_charset, Charset):
+            _charset = str(_charset)
 
         MIMENonMultipart.__init__(self, 'text', _subtype,
                                   **{'charset': _charset})
 
         self.set_payload(_text, _charset)
diff --git a/Lib/test/test_email/test_email.py b/Lib/test/test_email/test_email.py
--- a/Lib/test/test_email/test_email.py
+++ b/Lib/test/test_email/test_email.py
@@ -1631,16 +1631,20 @@ class TestMIMEText(unittest.TestCase):
         self.assertEqual(self._msg.get_payload(), 'hello there')
         self.assertFalse(self._msg.is_multipart())
 
     def test_charset(self):
         eq = self.assertEqual
         msg = MIMEText('hello there', _charset='us-ascii')
         eq(msg.get_charset().input_charset, 'us-ascii')
         eq(msg['content-type'], 'text/plain; charset="us-ascii"')
+        # Also accept a Charset instance
+        msg = MIMEText('hello there', _charset=Charset('utf-8'))
+        eq(msg.get_charset().input_charset, 'utf-8')
+        eq(msg['content-type'], 'text/plain; charset="utf-8"')
 
     def test_7bit_input(self):
         eq = self.assertEqual
         msg = MIMEText('hello there', _charset='us-ascii')
         eq(msg.get_charset().input_charset, 'us-ascii')
         eq(msg['content-type'], 'text/plain; charset="us-ascii"')
 
     def test_7bit_input_no_charset(self):