Good writing is not necessarily readable writing. Shakespearean works are good writing, but they are most certainly not easily readable. There is code that is great code because for many other reasons than readability.(Like performance, correctness, robustness)
Easy to read writing is simple and concrete. Code that is easy to understand is also simple and concrete.
Complexity and abstraction push away understanding like two positive magnets. But sometimes readability is worth sacrificing to achieve a separate goal with the code.
They would have been easy to understand by folks who were alive at the time they were written when performed on stage. The only unfamiliar words would have been the ones he coined, but most of those were easy cognates from latin. If Shakespeare wrote the same works today then he'd be a terrible writer.
Easy to read writing is simple and concrete. Code that is easy to understand is also simple and concrete.
Complexity and abstraction push away understanding like two positive magnets. But sometimes readability is worth sacrificing to achieve a separate goal with the code.