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 <WSD>fustian</WSD> which lacks either poetic resonance or demotic realism, adding to a sense of artificiality rather than enhancing credibility. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  Pompous, inflated or pretentious writing or speech.