diff --git a/src/Symfony/Component/DomCrawler/CHANGELOG.md b/src/Symfony/Component/DomCrawler/CHANGELOG.md
index 155c317002..fa043cfd1e 100644
--- a/src/Symfony/Component/DomCrawler/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/src/Symfony/Component/DomCrawler/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -14,6 +14,7 @@ CHANGELOG
 * Added `Crawler::matches()` method.
 * Added `Crawler::closest()` method.
 * Added `Crawler::outerHtml()` method.
+* Added an argument to the `Crawler::text()` method to opt-in normalizing whitespaces.
 
 4.3.0
 -----
diff --git a/src/Symfony/Component/DomCrawler/Crawler.php b/src/Symfony/Component/DomCrawler/Crawler.php
index 0fc61a7683..ac14bedf7b 100644
--- a/src/Symfony/Component/DomCrawler/Crawler.php
+++ b/src/Symfony/Component/DomCrawler/Crawler.php
@@ -569,15 +569,16 @@ class Crawler implements \Countable, \IteratorAggregate
     }
 
     /**
-     * Returns the node value of the first node of the list.
+     * Returns the text of the first node of the list.
      *
-     * @param mixed $default When provided and the current node is empty, this value is returned and no exception is thrown
+     * @param mixed $default             When provided and the current node is empty, this value is returned and no exception is thrown
+     * @param bool  $normalizeWhitespace Whether whitespaces should be trimmed and normalized to single spaces
      *
      * @return string The node value
      *
      * @throws \InvalidArgumentException When current node is empty
      */
-    public function text($default = null)
+    public function text($default = null, bool $normalizeWhitespace = false)
     {
         if (!$this->nodes) {
             if (0 < \func_num_args()) {
@@ -587,7 +588,13 @@ class Crawler implements \Countable, \IteratorAggregate
             throw new \InvalidArgumentException('The current node list is empty.');
         }
 
-        return $this->getNode(0)->nodeValue;
+        $text = $this->getNode(0)->nodeValue;
+
+        if (\func_num_args() > 1 && func_get_arg(1)) {
+            return trim(preg_replace('/(?:\s{2,}+|[^\S ])/', ' ', $text));
+        }
+
+        return $text;
     }
 
     /**
diff --git a/src/Symfony/Component/DomCrawler/Tests/AbstractCrawlerTest.php b/src/Symfony/Component/DomCrawler/Tests/AbstractCrawlerTest.php
index 92388a5ca2..ee45649a77 100644
--- a/src/Symfony/Component/DomCrawler/Tests/AbstractCrawlerTest.php
+++ b/src/Symfony/Component/DomCrawler/Tests/AbstractCrawlerTest.php
@@ -253,6 +253,14 @@ abstract class AbstractCrawlerTest extends TestCase
         $this->assertCount(0, $crawler->eq(100), '->eq() returns an empty crawler if the nth node does not exist');
     }
 
+    public function testNormalizeWhiteSpace()
+    {
+        $crawler = $this->createTestCrawler()->filterXPath('//p');
+        $this->assertSame('Elsa <3', $crawler->text(null, true), '->text(null, true) returns the text with normalized whitespace');
+        $this->assertNotSame('Elsa <3', $crawler->text(null, false));
+        $this->assertNotSame('Elsa <3', $crawler->text());
+    }
+
     public function testEach()
     {
         $data = $this->createTestCrawler()->filterXPath('//ul[1]/li')->each(function ($node, $i) {
@@ -1235,6 +1243,10 @@ HTML;
                         <li>Two Bis</li>
                         <li>Three Bis</li>
                     </ul>
+                    <p class="whitespace">
+                        Elsa
+                        &lt;3
+                    </p>
                     <div id="parent">
                         <div id="child"></div>
                         <div id="child2" xmlns:foo="http://example.com"></div>