diff --git a/couchdb/client.py b/couchdb/client.py
index 6125e831..a686c6a2 100644
--- a/couchdb/client.py
+++ b/couchdb/client.py
@@ -1271,7 +1271,7 @@ def _encode_view_options(options):
     """
     retval = {}
     for name, value in options.items():
-        if name in ('key', 'startkey', 'endkey') \
+        if name in ('key', 'startkey', 'endkey', 'start_key', 'end_key') \
                 or not isinstance(value, util.strbase):
             value = json.encode(value)
         retval[name] = value
diff --git a/couchdb/tests/client.py b/couchdb/tests/client.py
index c21f3940..1669646a 100644
--- a/couchdb/tests/client.py
+++ b/couchdb/tests/client.py
@@ -939,7 +939,13 @@ def test_startkey(self):
                          [self.docfromnum(x) for x in range(self.num_docs - 2, self.num_docs)])
         self.assertEqual([self.docfromrow(doc) for doc in self.db.iterview('test/nums', 10, startkey=1, descending=True)],
                          [self.docfromnum(x) for x in range(3, -1, -1)])
-
+        
+    def test_start_key(self):
+        self.assertEqual([self.docfromrow(doc) for doc in self.db.iterview('test/nums', 10, start_key=int(self.num_docs / 2) - 1)],
+                         [self.docfromnum(x) for x in range(self.num_docs - 2, self.num_docs)])
+        self.assertEqual([self.docfromrow(doc) for doc in self.db.iterview('test/nums', 10, start_key=1, descending=True)],
+                         [self.docfromnum(x) for x in range(3, -1, -1)])
+        
     def test_nullkeys(self):
         self.assertEqual(len(list(self.db.iterview('test/nulls', 10))), self.num_docs)