That is not the hallmark of literate programming, but the hallmark bad/unhelpful code comments or docs. Like, you can also have bad/unhelpful function names or unclean and tangled implementations.
It doesn’t. Literate programming is letting the documentation, rather than the implementation, dictate the order and organization of the program.
You could theoretically write a literate program that is nothing but code, if the code is so readable that it doesn’t need explaining. The distinction is that it is “human first” over “computer first”.
"TeX: The Program" is a joy to read.