Sentence:  Anything grandiose or historically based tends to sound flat and banal when it reaches English, partly because translators get stuck between contradictory imperatives: juggling fidelity to the original sense with what is vocally viable, they tend to resort to a genteel fustian which lacks either poetic resonance or <WSD>demotic</WSD> realism, adding to a sense of artificiality rather than enhancing credibility. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  Of or for the common people.